


every little bit

by wincechesters



Category: Supernatural RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe, Anal Fingering, Bars and Pubs, Bathroom Sex, Blow Jobs, Explicit Sexual Content, First Time, Internalized Homophobia, M/M, Professor Misha, Semi-Public Sex, Singer Jensen, Switching
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-30
Updated: 2016-04-30
Packaged: 2018-06-05 10:03:16
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 26,157
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6700486
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wincechesters/pseuds/wincechesters
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Open mic night at Rich and Rob’s bar is usually more misses than hits, but with a great singing voice and the looks to match, Jensen Ackles is definitely the latter. He’s also endearingly shy and incredibly interesting, and Misha starts showing up at open-mic night just for a chance to hear him sing and to talk with him afterwards. It isn’t long before it’s confirmed (loudly, and with enthusiasm) that Jensen reciprocates his interest, or until their hook-ups become something more. Misha finds himself falling hard and inadvisably fast, but Jensen’s fear of letting his attraction to another man out in the open might send them crashing to the ground before they’ve even begun.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the [Supernatural Rare Pair Big Bang 2016](http://rarepairbb.tumblr.com). Gorgeous art is by the amazing [Sandra](http://casblues.tumblr.com) \- please don't forget to give her some love for the beautiful art she created for this fic! Check out the masterpost [here](http://casblues.tumblr.com/post/143629255200/art-for-wincechesters-every-little-bit-for-the).
> 
> Special thanks as always to the magnificent three: Sandra (for art and encouragement and for helping me with Misha's characterization in particular!), Meg (for betaing and encouragement and general awesomeness) and Elenya (for nonstop cheerleading, and the funniest comments I'll ever receive on a draft. Saving that shit forever.)
> 
> Title is from Led Zepplin's 'I'm Gonna Crawl'.

It’s eleven o’clock on a Thursday when Misha shoves himself back from his desk and the thick stack of paper splayed across it, rubbing at his tired eyes. His hand is sore where his fingers had developed a death grip around his red marking pen, and his back is tense from hunching into an ever-deeper slouch over the pile of final essays he has yet to read from his winter semester classes. He pushes up from his desk and stretches with a groan, shaking out his stiff legs. He’s not nearly as far through his grading as he’d hoped to be at this point, but he’s too mentally exhausted to read any longer and too antsy to turn in for the night.

A glance in the mirror proves his hair is beyond saving, mussed and messy from the frustrated rake of his fingers. There’s a few days worth of stubble darkening his jaw, and his t-shirt is rumpled beyond repair, but “to hell with it,” he mutters, and drags a leather jacket over his t-shirt before heading out the door.

The dimly lit sign of Rob and Rich’s bar—the equal parts obviously and aptly named RnR—is a welcome sight, the low wash of sound drowning out his buzzing mind as the door swings shut behind him. He makes his way over to where Rich is tending bar, sliding onto an empty barstool to wait for his friend. He slumps wearily over the bar, wincing when the guy at the mic misses a note by several (hundred) miles. Misha tilts his head towards his left shoulder, lifting a hand to massage at the stiff muscles at the base of his neck.

“Look alive, Misha.”

Misha jerks his head up in time to catch the beer Rich slides his way from down the bar. His hand curls automatically around the bottle, the cool condensation sweating over the glass sending a jolt of awareness through him where the skin of his palm presses against it. He raises the bottle in grateful thanks before tipping it back, taking several long swallows before lowering it back to the bar.

“You’re a lifesaver, buddy.”

“Hey, no sweat.” Rich flips a checkered towel over his shoulder with a flourish. Rich never does anything without a flourish. “Rough day?”

“Rough week.”

“Well, sit back, and let ol’ Dick take care of you. Drinks are on me and Rob tonight.” He winces. “Well, let’s say the first two drinks are on me and Rob tonight. Open mic night doesn’t exactly bring in a lot of business.”

“Why do you guys even still run open mic night? Don’t get me wrong, I’m all for freedom of expression, but it seems to me it doesn’t exactly go over well with the patrons.” Misha looks pointedly around the half-empty bar.

Rich smirks knowingly in his direction. “You’re only saying that because no one liked your poetry, the one time you had the balls to get up there.”

Misha shrugs, taking another swig of his beer. “Not everyone appreciates my genius.”

“Genius. Sure,” Rich says, snatching the towel off his shoulder to swipe the moisture off a clean glass. “Anyway, you know Robbie needs every excuse to get up on stage. The open mic thing just gives him another reason.”

“Ah, Robbie,” Misha agrees, the both of them turning in unison to the stage where their friend is smiling woodenly and strumming away at his guitar. Even sweet Rob’s patience is wearing thin with the jackass in the middle of the stage, singing like he thinks he’s Paul Stanley and falling woefully short. “Is it worth it though?”

“Ahhh, they’re not all bad.”

Misha and Rich wince their way through the rest of the song, and they put their hands together for the band at least, even as they give each other a significant glance for the cocky-ass singer as he swaggers off the stage. Rich grabs a few bottles of beer, raising them along with his eyebrows as he disappears off to bring refreshments to Rob and the rest of the band.

Misha settles in, letting the buzz of the bar around him drag him down, the cool beer on his tongue sparking his tired nerves. Alona, Rich’s best bartender, who’s working at the other end of the bar, spreads her territory in Rich’s absence, coming over to Misha’s end of the bar to serve the few customers loitering there.

“Hey Misha,” she says, shooting him a sunny smile as she pops the top off a beer and sets it on the bar in front of a skinny, clean-shaven guy who looks like he’d love to catch her attention. She nods at him, nonchalant. “Five-fifty.”

The guy forks up the cash, looking disgruntled when she turns back to Misha right away. “How’s work? Been keeping busy?”

Misha winces, taking a long drag of his beer in answer.

Alona’s smiling when he pulls the bottle back from his mouth. “That bad, huh?”

“Exam week,” Misha says by way of explanation, and she pulls a sympathetic face.

“How’s that going?”

Misha grimaces. “If I have to see another comma splice error...” He shakes his head disparagingly. “Well, let’s just say I couldn’t wait ‘til Friday to get some RnR.” He raises his bottle in salute and she snags her own, raising it with a grin to toast him.

“You work too hard,” she teases. “Take it easy, tonight, huh?”

“Sure thing, kid,” he says with a wry grin, and she sticks her tongue out at him before she has to move back to the other end of the bar where a group of college-aged girls are hailing her, raising her hand to receive a high-five from Rich when he slips back behind the bar.

“How’s the band?” Misha asks, when Rich leans himself back up against the bar.

“Eh, you know Rob,” Rich says, shrugging. “Got a couple more acts, maybe the next will be better, blah blah.” He glances over Misha’s shoulder and points. “Guess we’ll find out if that’s true.”

Misha spins in his seat, leaning his elbows back up against the bar. Rob and his band are filing back on stage and Misha puts his hands together along with Rich and the other regulars, the noise dying down as Rob turns back expectantly towards the curtain.

There’s a hand first, sweeping aside the curtain, followed by an arm and the neck of a guitar, and then someone steps out, blinking into the light as he moves out onto the stage. He straightens and at his full height he dwarfs Rob, who smiles encouragingly up at him and gestures to the mic.

And Misha sits up a little straighter in his chair because _whoa_.

The guy looks like the kind of douchebag who probably grew up popular—fit and probably good at sports and damn _hot_ , with broad shoulders tapering down to a trim waist. His hair is cut and neatly styled like a model on the cover of a GQ magazine and even from Misha’s perch at the bar he can see the sharp cut of defined cheekbones in the harsh stage lights. He’s probably some stuck-up homecoming asshole, probably thinks he’s hot shit (because _damn_ , he kind of is), but that’s okay because Misha’s just enjoying looking at him.

“I take it all back,” Misha says, groping blindly for his beer, eyes riveted to the stage as the newcomer reaches to adjust the height of the mic stand—up and up and _up_. “Open mic night is the best. I love open mic night.” He finds his glass, slopping only a little bit over the side before bringing it to his mouth and taking a long swallow. He ignores Rich’s derisive snort, watching as the guy on stage fumbles with the stand, then the mic, then the strap of his guitar, pointedly looking anywhere but out at the audience.

Finally it seems he can stall no more, because he lifts his head to speak into the microphone. “Uh, hey,” he says, his voice deep and gruff and surprisingly shy. He smiles timidly, just a little uptick at the corners of his pretty mouth. “I’m—uh—Jensen Ackles. Sing along if you know this.”

He steps back for a second, clearing his throat and fumbling with his guitar. It almost looks like this guy, this fucking _Adonis_ is fucking _nervous_ , and Misha finds himself stupidly, inadvisably charmed.

When it seems he can delay no more, the singer—Jensen, Misha reminds himself—takes a breath and starts plucking guitar strings, piecing together a skillful tune. He’s frowning down at his guitar when he does it, but he looks up with a startled half-smile when the bar at large lets out a cheer at the familiar melody. He grins shyly and looks over at Rob just as the band joins in, Rob’s electric guitar starting up under his clever hands to join the singer’s acoustic. Jensen’s fingers move with growing confidence over the strings, dexterous and quick in a way that makes Misha’s mouth go dry.

And then the music eases back into the background, and Jensen steps up to the mic and starts to sing and everything else Misha was thinking flies straight out of his head.

His voice is softer than Misha imagined after the deep rumble of his speaking voice, sweet and smooth like honey. It dances over the melody along with the jaunty rambling tune, his voice growing stronger as he makes his way through the song, until it’s picked up a beautiful growl in the chorus like the afterburn of smooth scotch. The entire bar is listening now, heads bobbing along, including Misha’s, and he watches appreciatively when Jensen starts to move a little along with the bounce of his fingers over the guitar strings.

Behind him, Rich is singing along with the chorus and drumming his hands along the bar. Misha doesn’t sing; he’s too busy listening hard for Jensen’s beautiful voice, but he puts his fingers to his mouth and whistles loudly along with everyone else when the song is done. Jensen smiles out at the crowd, lines creasing the corners of his eyes that make him, if possible, even more beautiful.

“Well shit,” Misha mumbles to himself, banging his fist on the bar along with the rest of the dwindling cheers as Jensen gives a wave and disappears off stage. Misha turns away, taking a long pull of his beer, nodding fervently as Rich remarks on the surprising amount of talent from the last act. Rich disappears momentarily to serve another customer, and Misha tries not to look like he’s watching for Jensen’s reappearance as he glances surreptitiously around the crowds between the bar and backstage.

Jensen appears from the hallway at the back, accepting a high-five from a giant of a man in a button up shirt and jaw-length hair showing from underneath a white beanie, as they make their way over to the bar. Misha feels a spark of jealousy, but they don’t look like they’re together as they lean up against the other end of the bar, Jensen raising two fingers to politely signal Alona where she’s polishing a glass.

“Down boy,” Rich says, laughing as he reappears to fish out a couple beers from the cooler. “You got a little something there.” He reaches out a hand and wipes a trail of imaginary drool from Misha’s chin.

Misha bats him away absently, refusing to tear his eyes away from Jensen, who sips at the beer Alona passes him, lips curving sinfully around the mouth of the bottle. His throat works in long, slow pulls, and Misha feels his mouth go dry.

“Fuck,” he says reverently. “I’m in love.”

Rich laughs even harder, throws a mock punch at his arm. “You’re not in love, you’re horny,” Rich says.

Misha shrugs. “What’s the difference?”

“C’mon Misha, look at him! The guy’s straight.”

Misha purses his lips, nods in concession. “You could be right.” Jensen could be straight. He could also be ace, or attached, or just plain not interested, but Misha is intrigued by the beautiful man with the gorgeous voice who for some reason acted on stage like he was neither, and well. He isn’t the kind of guy who doesn’t take chances just because he might fail.

He raises his near-empty beer in salute, tossing Rich a salacious wink. “Then again, you could be wrong.” He tips back the bottle and drains the rest in one long draught, slapping the bottle back down on the counter. “Wish me luck.”

“I’ll do no such thing,” Rich retorts to Misha’s retreating back, calling, “You’re gonna get your ass kicked!” after him.

Misha grins and just keeps walking, weaving his way through the crowd. Thankfully when he gets there, Jensen’s friend is occupied with a beautiful, smirking brunette, several inches shorter than him, standing in the vee of his legs and leaning in in a way that says it’s not the first time and she knows she has permission. Misha gives her a nod and a wink when she catches his eye with a questioning look, but slips past them until he can lean up against the bar between them and Jensen.

“Hi, Jensen, right?” He sticks out a hand, his elbow resting casually on the bar. “I’m Misha.”

Jensen looks up, startled, but recovers quickly, quirking a cocky grin at him that looks patented and so at home on that rugged, beautiful male-model face. “Hey man.” He accepts Misha’s hand, thick, calloused fingers folding around Misha’s and squeezing as he shakes it firmly. Misha’s mind goes instantly to pornland; he could think of a lot of good uses for hands like those.

Up close, Jensen is even more gorgeous than he had been up on stage. His t-shirt clings to the curve of broad, muscled shoulders, and he’s only an inch or two taller than Misha, the difference lessened by his easy slouch where he leans on one elbow on the polished bar.

“First time?” Misha asks, jerking his head towards the stage in indication. Jensen turns to look over his shoulder, following Misha’s gaze, and then he smiles ruefully, rubbing a hand over the back of his neck—and that’s just too fucking cute for someone who looks like he’s made for strutting. Misha would be willing to bet that if it wasn’t so dark, he’d be able to see a flush of red creeping up his neck and over the stubbled jaw into the high arch of his cheeks, and for a moment Misha’s grateful for the dingy light. He’s only human; a blush on this guy would be too fucking much for him to handle.

“Uh, yeah. First time on a stage anyway.” Jensen takes a swig of his beer. “You ever been up there?”

Misha nods, smirking. “Once or twice. Not singing though. Poetry.”

Jensen’s eyebrows shoot up towards his hairline where his hair is spiked and dark with sweat. “Poetry?”

“Yeah, yeah, I know,” Misha says, grinning back at him. “But don’t knock it. Not everyone liked it—” only a _slight_ understatement “—but I got a couple phone numbers that night.”

He winks, and stares as Jensen throws his head back and laughs, his whole body curving with the force of it. It wasn’t _that_ funny, but hell if Misha’s going to say anything because that’s fucking beautiful and contagious and he can’t help it—he laughs too.

“You need another one of those?” He asks instead, pointing at the beer in Jensen’s hand.

“Sure,” Jensen replies, tipping the bottle back to drain the last dregs.

Alona’s still on their end of the bar, and she’s so good Misha barely has to raise a finger before she’s there, popping the tops off of two bottles of Wild Goose IPA. Misha passes one to Jensen, and he’s sliding a ten into Alona’s quick fingers before Jensen has time to reach for his wallet.

“You didn’t have to do that.”

Misha shrugs easily, raising the bottle to his lips. He takes a sip, eyes meeting Jensen’s over the bottle, and he’s pretty sure he’s not imagining the way Jensen’s eyes flicker to his lips and back up again. “Consider it a celebratory drink. For your first time.”

Jensen’s hand falters, the beer pausing partway to his mouth. He swallows, then seems to visibly shrug off Misha’s words, raising the bottle the rest of the way. “Thanks,” he says after, and Misha nods.

“You going to come back, give it another shot? You know they have open mic night every Thursday.”

“I don’t know. I like singing, and it’s cool being up there with a live band.” Jensen grimaces, full lips twisting. “But I kinda get—don’t laugh, okay, but I kinda get stage fright.”

Misha doesn’t laugh. “Well, I hope you’ll give it another shot; you did good up there.” He grins and debates with himself for a half a second before he throws caution to the wind and just goes for it. “Looked good too.”

Jensen doesn’t disappoint; he chokes on his beer, pressing the back of his free hand over his mouth and that’s when Misha has to fight back his laugh. But then he blinks wide eyes across at Misha—wide _green_ eyes, framed by the longest, fullest lashes Misha’s ever seen, _fuck_.

Misha tamps down on the heat curling through his belly and smiles placidly at Jensen, reaching across the space between them to clink their bottles together in a one-sided toast.

“Enjoy the rest of your night, Jensen,” he says, and flashes him another wink, before turning on his heel and leaving Jensen speechless behind him.

When he slides back into the stool in front of Rich, his friend raises his eyebrows sardonically. “What happened, strike out?” He surveys Misha with mock concern. “You still look like you have both your kneecaps.”

Misha shakes his head, and raises his beer bottle to his lips, smiling secretively to himself before taking another long swig. When he looks back over, Jensen’s surrounded by friends, talking animatedly with the tall guy and the tiny brunette and a couple others who trickle over to join them, Misha seemingly forgotten.

But Misha thinks he might feel Jensen’s eyes on him for a long time after that.

* * *

Misha tells himself that Jensen’s not the reason he shows up for open mic night the next several weeks in a row, that he doesn’t care if he ever sees him again. He even manages to enjoy himself a couple of those nights, especially the day a woman with a thick mane of blonde hair and a set of serious pipes gets up there and sings Bon Jovi better than Bon Jovi did, and their friend Kim gets a predatory gleam in her eye that Misha is going to tease her about for the conceivable future. It turns out the blonde—Briana, they quickly learn—has a mouth to rival Kim herself and the attitude to match, and Misha isn’t surprised when they show up together the next week, arms draped around each other, casually proprietary.

When Rich makes a joke about Kim succeeding at snagging a rock star where Misha struck out, Misha just smiles blandly and flips him the bird.

By the fifth Thursday in a row, Misha has all but given up on seeing Jensen again, and he’s just downed the shot of tequila Kim challenged him to when that deep, low voice with just a hint of Texas drawl sounds through the speakers, cutting through the drunken cheers. Misha almost chokes on his lemon.

“Hey, uh, I’m Jensen. I know you know this one, so sing along.”

Misha spins around in time to see Jensen mess around with his guitar, stepping on the pedal at his feet before giving Rob a nervous smile and a nod. Rob counts them down and the band starts up, and Jensen nods a little along to the beat like he can’t really help himself, lips pursed as he waits for his cue.

His voice is as sexy as Misha remembered, and he looks good up there in a denim button-down that fits too well to not have been tailored just a little. He’s still fucking adorably shy for a guy who looks like he never would have heard the word “no” in his life, his eyes fixed somewhere in the middle distance, until he pauses for a bar and Briana lets out a loud yell from her spot at the bar. Her cheer is joined by nearly everyone watching, and Jensen looks up and gives a shy grin that makes crows feet stand out around his eyes—and Misha is in so much fucking trouble.

“Fuck,” he says, with fervor, and he ignores the chortles of his friends in favor of watching Jensen up on stage, rapt.

The longer Jensen’s up on stage the more into the song he gets, the tense shyness fading away until he looks like he might actually be enjoying himself a little. He meets Billy’s eyes during Billy’s guitar solo and grins, his body loosening until he’s moving along with the music unconsciously. Misha can’t help it; his mind goes to all sorts of dirty places, watching the bend of his legs, the shift of his hips.

When the song ends, the bar erupts in cheers, and Jensen’s bashful smile is fucking beautiful and so not fucking fair. Misha puts his fingers to his lips and whistles, the sound piercing through the screams, and Jensen lifts his head and somehow meets his eyes across the crowd. He swallows hard.

From his spot at the bar behind Misha’s back, Rich groans loudly. “Jesus, Collins, you’re still hung up on the pretty boy?”

“Do you blame him?” Kim cuts in. “That man is fucking _art_.”

Rich’s eyebrows shimmy up his forehead, a playful smirk tugging up his lips. “Should you be saying that in front of your new girl?” He nods at Briana, raising his beer up to his mouth.

Briana reaches out and swipes the beer right out of his hand, raising it to her own lips to take a generous swallow. He gapes at her, and she winks. “I can appreciate a good piece of art,” she says, and turns to wink at Kim, dimples showing in the curve of her cheeks.

“I know how to pick ‘em, Rich,” Kim says smugly, and she leans into Briana, pressing a kiss to her upturned mouth.

Misha turns, grinning, back to Rich. “I think they’ve got it about covered, don’t you?”

Rich opens his mouth to retort, but it snaps shut suddenly, his eyes fixed on a point somewhere beyond Misha’s shoulder.

“Uh, hey,” a deep voice says from behind him, sending an honest-to-fucking-god shiver up Misha’s spine. “Misha, right?”

Misha whips around on his stool, his eyes flicking up to find Jensen, his hands stuffed in his pockets and rocking onto his heels like he’s not sure what he’s doing there. Behind his back, Misha thinks he hears Rich mutter, “un-fucking-believable” under his breath.

“Guilty as charged,” Misha says, ignoring Kim and Briana who stifle not-so-subtle snorts of laughter into each other’s hair, and Rich, who is no-doubt gaping openly behind him. He forces down the nervous flutter in his stomach, and plasters on the jauntiest smile he can muster. “How are you, Jensen?”

Jensen shrugs, looking embarrassed. “I’m all right,” he hedges.

“Nice job tonight,” Misha says. “You looked a little more comfortable up there than last time.”

“Thanks,” Jensen says, shifting his weight. His eyes flick around nervously before he squares his shoulders and lopes over to the bar with a lazy, bow-legged grace, slinging one long leg over the stool next to Misha’s.

“Your friends aren’t here this time?”

Jensen shakes his head, his eyes scanning the bottles lined up behind the bar. “Jared and Gen are out on a date tonight. Couldn’t make it.”

“I assume Jared’s the Goliath, and Gen’s the pretty pixie who’s got him wrapped around her little finger?”

Jensen’s head tips back in that beautiful, full-body laugh that Misha had thought about on more than one occasion since the first time he saw it. He nods, the smile lingering in the lines around his eyes and the curve of his mouth. “Yeah, that’s them.”

Misha eyes him contemplatively, taking in the cultivated, alpha-male nonchalance with which Jensen stares straight ahead, purposefully not meeting Misha’s eyes. He’s hard to read, but something brought him over here, drove him to make the first move, which means there’s at least a chance he might be interested. “Want a beer?” Misha asks.

Jensen’s eyes finally flicker over to him, surprised. “Uh, yeah, sure man.”

“IPA, right?”

Jensen’s eyebrows shoot up, surprised, and a smile quirks the corner of his full mouth. “You remembered.”

Misha shrugs, fighting an answering grin, and raises two fingers to signal Rich, who appears with suspicious speed to deposit two coasters and two bottles of Wild Goose on the bar in front of them. Jensen reaches for his back pocket but Misha stops him with a hand on his muscled shoulder.

“I got it,” he says, slipping a bill to Richard before Jensen can protest.

“Thanks, man,” Jensen says, and he takes a long swig.

“So Jensen. What do you do when you’re not singing classic rock songs to a bar full of drunk people?”

Jensen shrugs nonchalantly, his lips pursing with the movement. “I’m in construction.”

Misha smiles at the sudden fantasy that fills his mind, unbidden: Jensen in Carhartts, a tool belt slung low around his hips, strong muscles rolling under a sweat-soaked t-shirt as he hammers. He shakes his head, fighting a laugh at himself. He’s all kinds of stereotypes right now.

“What?” Jensen asks, frowning.

Misha shakes his head. “No, nothing. You’d be good at that, I bet.” He tries not to stare at the curve of muscle exposed by the arm of Jensen’s t-shirt, obviously the fruit of hard labor. “Do you like it?”

“It’s all right.”

Misha frowns. “You don’t sound so sure about that.”

Jensen shrugs. “It pays the bills, and I guess I do okay.” He looks closed-off, withdrawn in a way he wasn’t before, and Misha doesn’t like it. He smacks his palm theatrically to his forehead, and Jensen blinks, startled.

“That’s not the most important question though,” Misha says. “The one I _really_ need to know.”

“Oh yeah?” Jensen’s brow furrows confusedly. “What’s that?”

Misha grins. “Do you have to wear one of those _incredibly_ unflattering hard hats every day?”

Jensen stares at him for a split second before a surprised huff of laughter escapes his parted lips. “All right smart ass. Yes I do; it’s mandatory safety gear.”

“Well that’s good,” Misha says. “Wouldn’t want to damage that perfect hair.”

Jensen full-out laughs then, and he reaches to shove amiably at Misha’s shoulder. “And I guess your job is perfectly dignified all the time, is it?”

“Hardly,” Misha scoffs. “I teach college English.”

Jensen blinks, looking impressed. “Shit. So you’re actually, like, making a difference.”

“What you do makes a difference, too, Jensen.”

“No I mean.” Jensen waves a hand. “You’re helping people. Shaping the minds of tomorrow.”

Misha cocks an eyebrow. “Or I’m just using my classroom as a platform to brainwash them into an army. For when I take over the world.”

Jensen chokes on his beer, but manages to swallow down the mouthful without spraying it all over the bar. He wipes his mouth with the back of his hand, lines of mirth creasing the skin around his bright eyes. “Remind me not to get on your bad side.”

“Oh trust me,” Misha says, smirking over the lip of his own bottle. “You’d have to do something really heinous to get on my bad side.” He waits for Jensen to meet his eyes and winks teasingly.

It’s dark in their section of the bar, the lights low and dusky, so Misha can’t see the flush that creeps its way up Jensen’s neck into his cheeks, but it’s in the way his eyes go wide for a second, the way he swallows and darts his gaze away, one big hand rubbing unconsciously up and down his own thigh.

“Thanks for the, uh—” Jensen gestures with the beer in his hand “—but I’m. I’m not gay. Sorry.”

Misha shrugs, carefully nonchalant in spite of the flicker of disappointment and nerves that flips his stomach over. He grins over the mouth of his own bottle. “I’m not either.”

Jensen rolls his eyes. “You know what I mean. I’m not like—into guys.”

“Okay.”

“I’m serious!”

“Okay,” Misha repeats, smiling, and he means it; if Jensen isn’t interested, then he’ll back off. But he brings the bottle to his lips, takes a drink, his eyes glued to Jensen’s. He knows how he looks, mouth wet and curved around the mouth of the bottle, and he doesn’t think he’s imagining the way Jensen’s throat works or the way his pupils blow up wide in the dim light of the bar.

Misha waits until Jensen meets his eye, tentative and swift like he was hoping not to be noticed, and waggles his eyebrows.

Caught off guard, Jensen laughs, tossing his head back. His face kind of crinkles up and his lips pull back to show all his sparkling white teeth and Misha thinks it’s probably the most beautiful thing he’s ever seen.

“Oh, fuck you,” Jensen says, still laughing, and he reaches out to shove at Misha’s shoulder. Misha lets Jensen push him, rocks back under the heat of Jensen’s broad palm, the strong fingers that press against the meat of his shoulder. He sways back in, laughing, as Jensen’s hand draws back, and he makes the mistake of meeting Jensen’s eyes.

They’re dark and hungry and as Misha watches, they flit down to his mouth. And Misha can’t help that he’s a shameless fucking flirt, _sue him_ —his tongue darting out reflexively to slide thickly over his own lips. Jensen’s watching his mouth, and his lips part ever so slightly and he shifts a little in his chair, like he’s imagining what that mouth could do, and _fuck_ , but Misha wants to show him. He decides to take a chance.

“I’m going to the bathroom,” Misha says pointedly, and he smiles, flashes Jensen a wink, and turns to walk away. He doesn’t look back, making his way steadily towards the men’s room, and he thinks he can feel Jensen watching him the whole way to the dingy hallway at the back of the bar.

The bathroom door swings shut behind him, muffling the wailing of Billy’s epic guitar solo. He takes a breath, raking a hand through his hair as he shoulders open the two stall doors one after another, tamping down on the flicker of excitement when he finds them empty.

“Keep it together, Collins,” he cautions himself, leaning against the wall beside the hand dryer. It’s been awhile since he was this nervous about a potential hookup. He crosses his arms over his chest, and lazily slings one ankle over the other, arranging himself into a careful tableau of nonchalance.

He waits so long he’s beginning to think he imagined the interest he thought he saw in Jensen’s eyes, when the door finally swings open.

Jensen shuffles in the door, that bowlegged Texan swagger exaggerated to hide the nervousness hovering in the tenseness of his broad shoulders and the tightness around his wide green eyes. Jesus Christ, he even looks beautiful in the dim yellow light of the bathrooms, freckles scattered across the bridge of his nose and the arch of his sculpted cheekbones. Misha grins as Jensen shoves his hands down into his pockets and glances around the room.

“Fancy meeting you here,” Misha says, breaking the tense silence between them, and Jensen finally meets Misha’s eyes. The nervous want there is enough to make Misha swallow hard, heat and need pulling low in his stomach as he shoves himself off the wall, taking a slow step forward.

“Yeah,” Jensen says, his eyes fixated on Misha’s hand as it stretches across the space between them. Misha’s fingers graze just along his shoulder, the cords of hard muscle there, and Jensen’s eyes follow the slow path he takes as he lets his hand trail down over Jensen’s pectoral muscle to gently pluck at the fabric.

Jensen swallows, and his eyes flick up to meet Misha’s. Misha grins at him, a slow, sultry thing, before he lets his fingers tighten in the cotton of Jensen’s t-shirt. He closes his hand into a fist and pulls, slowly, watching Jensen’s face for any sign that he’s changed his mind, that he might not want this. He licks his lips and Jensen’s mouth falls slack, his own tongue slipping out to wet full, soft lips. As Misha watches, giving a last tug so Jensen slips closer into Misha’s space, Jensen’s eyes darken with heat and need and want and Jesus, he’s beautiful.

_Fuck it._

Misha lunges forward, closing the space between their mouths with near-violent need. Jensen’s lips part almost instantly for Misha’s tongue, a low groan rumbling up from the back of his throat as his hands come up to clutch at Misha, strong muscled arms curling around Misha’s waist to tighten in the shirt at his back. His chest is a hard, solid heat against Misha’s and Misha presses in tighter with his whole body, hips pressing forward into Jensen’s.

Misha’s hands find Jensen’s hair, and he drinks down the sound that Jensen makes when his fingers tighten in the strands. He’s so responsive, gorgeous body pressing into each roll of Misha’s hips, shivering under the scrape of his nails, gasps and whimpers and groans finding their way past those beautiful full lips even though he tries to smother them. Misha nips at the swell of his full lower lip, and growls when Jensen’s hips twitch forward, his thickening erection pressing against Misha’s hip.

He’s big, Misha can tell even through their jeans, and his mouth waters at the thought of that big dick filling him up. He pulls away, ignoring the disgruntled sound that finds its way out of Jensen’s throat, spinning them until he’s pushing Jensen up against the wall where Misha had been standing before he came in.

“Wh—” Jensen starts but the word cuts off on a sucked-in breath as Misha drops hastily to his knees, hands dragging down Jensen’s torso to find his belt buckle. He leans in, mouthing the hard line of Jensen’s erection through his jeans as he works the leather free of its clasp, his own cock giving a lusty throb at the sound that escapes Jensen’s lips when his mouth finds the head through Jensen’s pants.

Misha unzips Jensen’s jeans, shoving them and his boxers just far enough out of the way that Jensen’s cock bobs free. And it’s everything Misha had imagined, thick and cut and flushed dark and wet, and Misha’s hands tighten convulsively on Jensen’s hips, his mouth filling with saliva.

“Fuck you’ve got a beautiful cock,” he growls, and he leans in to lick teasingly at the head, gathering up the bitter precome on his tongue. Jensen groans, his head falling back against the tile, his big hand finding the back of Misha’s head, sliding into his hair as if on autopilot. And as much as Misha wants to suck him down in one go, swallow that thick cock until he’s deep-throating him like the talented bastard he knows he is, he also wants to make Jensen whimper, to tease him until he’s begging for it.

Glancing up through his lashes, Misha leans in enough to close his lips around the head, starting up a barely-there suction that he knows is nowhere near enough to get Jensen off. He swirls his tongue around, teasing at the slit before taking more, slowly lowering his mouth down the thick shaft a couple inches before pulling back to tongue the underside.

“You’re a fuckin’ cocktease, Misha,” Jensen says, his voice a low, cracked rumble, and Misha hums his agreement, chuckling a little in the back of his throat when Jensen swears and tries to buck his hips. He makes a choked noise when Misha pulls back to lick teasingly at the underside before closing his lips around the head and sucking hard. His head falls back against the tile behind him, exposing the long line of his neck as Misha looks up at him from under his lashes, bobbing his head to take more. And fuck, but Misha wants to mark up that freckled skin, feel the faint rasp of stubble on his lips as he kisses up under the defined angle of Jensen’s jaw. Instead, he digs his fingers into the flesh of Jensen’s hips, holding him still and sucks his way down Jensen’s cock.

“Fuck yeah.” Jensen’s fingers tighten in Misha’s hair and Misha growls low in his throat, swivelling his head as he swallows him down. His dick is heavy on Misha’s tongue, Misha’s mouth stretched obscenely around the girth of it, and Misha loves it: the heat of him, the silky skin slipping into his waiting mouth, the salt-tang of precome on his tongue. He slides his hands lower, cupping them around the tight muscles of Jensen’s strong thighs, tugging him in until Jensen’s eyes snap open.

Misha stares hungrily up at him and sucks harder, and Jensen groans when he gets the idea, letting his hips rock forward once, experimental. Misha lets his mouth go slack, accepting Jensen’s thrusts as he gains confidence, cock pushing past Misha’s lips in slow, delicious slides. He’s beautiful and obscene, back arched and head pressed back into the wall, hips thrusting languorously but growing more insistent as he fucks Misha’s mouth. Staring up at him reverently, Misha groans, freeing one of his hands from its vice-grip around the spur of Jensen’s hip to press it against his own dick, hard and aching and desperate in the tight confines of his jeans.

Jensen’s eyes slit open, lust-dark eyes showing from under those long lashes. “Shit,” he chokes out, his gaze locking on the movement of Misha’s hand where he’s rubbing brutally hard against his own erection, “ _Misha—_ ” and then he’s coming, hot and salty spill over the back of Misha’s tongue and down his throat as he fucks in and in, gasping until he’s spent.

Misha swallows it all down, licking his swollen lips and pushing himself to his feet. The hand still curled around Jensen’s hip stays there, the other curving around the side of Jensen’s neck as he presses hungry, needy kisses to Jensen’s throat. Jensen seems a little dazed, his big hands slipping limply out of Misha’s hair to settle around his shoulders, and Misha mostly manages not to grind his dick against the hard line of Jensen’s thigh where it slots against him.

“That was fucking beautiful,” he murmurs against Jensen’s throat, and Jensen makes a low noise, somewhere between a hum and a groan, before he’s turning his head to find Misha’s mouth with his own. He grimaces a little at the taste of his own come on Misha’s tongue, pulling a chuckle out of Misha when he feels the expression against his lips, but Jensen doesn’t pull back, kissing him tentatively at first, and then deeper as he comes back from his post-orgasm haze.

Then there’s a big hand fumbling at the button of Misha’s jeans, thick fingers unzipping him and slipping inside to curl around his cock. Misha grunts his surprise—he hadn’t been sure Jensen would want to reciprocate, honestly—but he catches up quickly, leaning into the pull and twist as Jensen jerks him off.

It should be embarrassing, how quickly he comes, but he was never going to last long, not with Jensen’s mouth on his, the firm thigh pressing between his legs, up against his aching balls, the strong hand slicking precome down his shaft and jerking him hard and fast. He bites Jensen’s lip when he comes, and Jensen lets out an absolutely fucking gorgeous whimper against the sting, kissing him harder.

Misha fumbles his way back to reality, kissing Jensen in time with the thrumming of his heart, slow and languid. He opens his eyes to the dirty bathroom, dingy, flickering light, and Jensen, pressed close and warm and broad, fucked-out and beautiful. Misha grins the spare two inches up at him.

“Thought you weren’t into guys.”

Jensen actually blushes, a flush creeping up the back of his neck and into his ears. “Shut up,” he says, and shoves at Misha’s shoulder before leaning in to kiss him again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The song Jensen sings in this chapter is 'Sweet Home Alabama' by Lynyrd Skynyrd.


	2. Chapter 2

The next week at open mic night, after Jensen sings, Misha meets him in the hallway leading from the stage to the bar floor and catches him by the hand with a raised eyebrow and leads him out back. They jerk each other off hurriedly with need and heat and no finesse, gasping into their kisses as they come, messy and hot, over each other’s fists.

It’s after Misha has cleaned up their hands, licking come off first his own fingers and then Jensen’s, when they’re leaning side by side against the cool brick wall that Jensen says, his voice gruff and gravelly and so sexy, “So can I get your phone number or what?”

Misha turns his head slowly, a grin spreading across his face. “Sure thing, stud,” he says and reaches into Jensen’s back pocket to fish out his phone and type in his number. While he’s at it he changes the language to French, and while Jensen is grumbling about it and fumbling around in the settings trying to fix it, he leans in and presses a sweet kiss to the corner of Jensen’s mouth, one that makes him flush and reach out to pull him in for a proper one.

Misha smiles for the rest of the night, and he can’t find it in him to do anything other than giggle and grin when his friends tease him about it.

He’s almost embarrassed how pleased he is to get a text from Jensen—exactly three days later, Jesus, this guy really plays by “the rules”—asking him if he’s going to be at open mic night next week.

_Of course_ , he replies. _There’s this really hot guy who sings there sometimes. I wouldn’t want to miss him._

_Oh yeah?_ comes the reply a few moments later. _What’s this hot guy look like?_

Misha finds himself smiling, when he types back, _Wouldn’t you like to know._

He’s barely put his phone down when it buzzes again, shuffling over the polished wood of his desk. It’s embarrassingly uncool how quickly he snatches it up, but then, there’s no one there to see it and he doesn’t much care anyway.

_I would._

His grin widens, and he forces himself to wait a minute before replying, scribbling some notes in his half-finished summer semester lesson plan, until he can’t anymore. _Show up on Thursday and you can see for yourself._

_I’ll be there_ , Jensen’s reply says. _Might just sing a little something myself._

_Looking forward to it_ , Misha replies, and tucks his phone away so he can get back to work, letting a smile stretch his mouth as he does.

On Monday, his morning run finds him caught beneath the most extraordinary sunrise, pink and orange and gold streaking up into the blue as the sun peeks over the horizon. He slows to a walk at the top of a hill, panting, and fishes his phone out of his pocket to snap a photo. In a fit of spontaneity, he sends it to Jensen.

Jensen doesn’t respond right away, and Misha tells himself it’s early; he hasn’t scared Jensen away. He’s still telling himself that when he’s on his second green tea of the day, when his phone finally buzzes in his back pocket. The time, lit up underneath the new message indicator bearing Jensen’s name, reads 11:17 am.

_Nice. What were you doing up at 5 am?_

_Running,_ Misha types back.

_Why the hell would you be doing something like that?_

_I like it._

There’s a long pause, and Misha uses it to take a sip of his tea, before his phone vibrates again in his hand. _Nobody LIKES running_. _Especially not at 5 am._

Misha feels himself grinning. _I do. If I didn’t run at 5 am I would never get a chance to see scenes like this._

_I prefer sunsets,_ Jensen replies, and Misha can almost hear the scoff in his voice.

_At last we agree,_ he types back, smiling. _Sunsets are pretty spectacular._ He sends that message off, and doesn’t wait for a reply before he sends his next. _What have you been up to this morning?_

The reply is a picture message, and Misha opens it to find a selfie of Jensen, obviously staged to look like he’s sleeping, mouth wide in a fake snore. His hair is mussed with sleep and the pillow under his head is rumpled and it’s endearing as hell. Misha laughs.

_Not a morning person then?_

_Not unless I have something good to wake up to._

That’s an innuendo if Misha ever heard it, and he sucks in a slow breath as arousal tingles through his blood. He tries not to think of Jensen in bed, sleep-warm and relaxed, his voice low and hoarse from sleep.

_Is that an invitation?_

Jensen’s reply takes minutes to come, and Misha smiles when he sees it. _Maybe._

Misha tucks his phone in his pocket, forcing himself back to work before Jensen manages to derail him entirely. But he lets the warmth in his chest and the irrepressible smile curling his lips carry him through the rest of the day.

****

He sends a picture to Jensen from his run on Tuesday too, this time of a fat pigeon balanced precariously and improbably on a tiny, overburdened street sign. On Wednesday, it’s a shaky, childlike sidewalk chalk drawing of a princess in a crown with a gigantic sword, slaying a dragon. On Thursday, it’s one of the signs from the outside of an adult video store.

That one gets him a ;-/ in reply, which confuses him and makes him laugh in equal measure.

By the time he wanders into the bar that night, he’s buzzing with excitement, looking forward to seeing Jensen again. He gets there earlier than usual, and he finds Rob at the bar with Rich.

“Misha!” Rob crows. “How’s it going, man? I haven’t seen you this much since summer break.”

“Haven’t you heard?” Rich says with a smirk. “Misha’s got a hard-on for one of our new open mic regulars. They’ve been decorating the bathroom floor for weeks now.”

Rob’s face does that thing somewhere between an embarrassed flush and a grimace. “Gross, man. Please tell me it’s not that asshole Wade. I wish that guy would screw off.”

“Who’s Wade?” Misha asks mildly, sipping at the beer Rich puts down in front of him.

Rich shudders. “C’mon you’ve seen him. Douchebag who couldn’t hit a note if it stood in front of him in a tutu and a flashing ‘kick me’ sign? Thinks he’s God’s gift to women?” He cocks an eyebrow. “Oh that’s right, you only have eyes for _Jensen_.”

“Jensen? Jensen Ackles?” Rob’s eyes go wide. “That’s who you’re hooking up with? Wait—he’s gay?”

Misha shrugs. “I’m not sure what he is.” He winks. “But whatever it is, he sure as hell liked it when I—”

“Stop, stop!” Rich waves his hands frantically. “Do _not_ finish that sentence; I don’t want to know.”

Misha grins smugly over the lip of his beer. Rich groans.

“Well there’s no doubt he’s good for business,” Rob presses on in that adorable, nervous way he has when something is awkward and he wants to blow past it. “Lots of people been coming in lately. We’re finally starting to get some good acts in here.”

“He is pretty good,” Misha says, flicking a wink in Rich’s direction that makes him groan and drop his face into an open palm.

“Who’s pretty good?”

Misha turns in his stool and finds none other than Jensen at his shoulder, a guitar case in his hand. He’s got a leather jacket on that emphasizes broad shoulders, and a scarf looped—more for fashion than warmth, Misha thinks—around his neck.

Misha smiles. “Speak of the devil. We were just talking about you and that voice of yours.”

“Oh yeah?” Jensen says, a shy smile curling his full lips. “Talking about me behind my back?”

“Only good things.” He spins a little in his chair, pointing to indicate his friends. “This is Rich, he’s the other owner of this dive.” Rich gives a sardonic little wave that Jensen returns with a nod. “Rob you already know. Guys, this is Jensen.”

“Howdy,” Rich says. “I’ve heard a lot about you.” He grimaces. “Actually, I’ve heard way, way too much about you.”

Jensen frowns, and Misha reaches across the bar to deliver an open-handed swat that Rich dodges nimbly. “He’s joking,” Misha reassures him with a sidelong grin in Jensen’s direction. “I didn’t even tell them how nice your dick is.”

Rob makes a sound like a distressed mouse, and Rich slaps a hand to his face with a groan. “Get the fuck out of here, Collins. I don’t need you ruining my night before I get to listen to five people in a row butcher ‘Don’t Stop Believing’.” Rich turns to Jensen. “You want a drink, Pretty Boy?”

“Yeah, gimme an IPA. The bitterer the better. And one for Misha too.”

Rich turns away from the bar, returning with two bottles. Jensen slides a bill onto the bar and waves away the change, a move that brings grudging appreciation onto Rich’s face before he pulls Rob pointedly away to talk business.

Misha grins and spins around on his stool to face Jensen fully. “Hi.”

Jensen’s mouth curves into a grin that it looks like he tries to fight and fails. “Hey.” The expression falters, a frown drawing his eyebrows together. “You told your friends about us?”

“Not really.” Misha shrugs. “But they might have suspected something when they saw me suspiciously stalking off to the bathroom and to the back door right after you got off stage two weeks in a row.”

Jensen laughs sheepishly. “Yeah okay, you got me there.”

“So,” Misha says, “you got here early.”

“Yeah,” Jensen says, and the hand goes up to rub again at the back of his neck, a gesture that Misha is beginning to realize is embarrassment. “Thought we could, uh. Hang out before.”

Misha grins broadly. “Is that what they’re calling it these days?”

Jensen laughs, and Misha thinks if it wasn’t so dark he’d be able to see the flush on his cheeks. “I’m serious!”

“Okay,” Misha says. “You know, if you want to ‘hang out’, we could do something that doesn’t involve the bar.”

“Like what?”

Misha shrugs. “Like a meal. Maybe even something that comes with cutlery, if we’re feeling ambitious.”

Jensen’s tongue darts out to lick his lips, a nervous gesture that still manages to be hot. “Like a date,” he says finally, and it’s not a question.

Something ugly and disappointed twists in Misha’s gut. He shoves down his disappointment, reminds himself what this is supposed to be: sex, and nothing more. “Or not,” he says casually, smiling blandly as he raises his beer to take a sip.

Jensen’s hand darts out and catches him by the wrist. “Wait, Misha.”

Misha’s gaze flickers to Jensen’s hand where it’s curled around him and back to Jensen’s face. He waits.

Jensen takes a long, slow breath. His hand tightens on Misha’s wrist. “Let’s do it. A date.”

“Yeah?” Misha raises his eyebrows skeptically.

“Yeah. Yeah I. I want to.”

Misha studies him, a slow grin creeping over his mouth when he sees nothing but open honesty on Jensen’s face. “Okay.” Jensen’s hand slips slowly off his wrist, reluctantly, like he doesn’t really want to let go, and he raises his beer to his mouth, letting himself take a long swallow. “Maybe after our _date_ , if you’re lucky I’ll let you take me back to my place.” He winks, and Jensen huffs a laugh.

“Does that mean I gotta wait ‘til the third date to get lucky?”

“Nah,” Misha says, and he drops his free hand to Jensen’s thigh under the bar. He doesn’t miss the way Jensen’s eyes find his, hungry and dark, pupils blowing up even wider in the dim light. “Pretty sure I don’t wanna wait that long.”

They end up back behind the bar again, this time before Jensen gets up on stage, rutting frantically against each other as their mouths meet, sloppy and hungry. Jensen gets Misha pressed up against the wall, out of the cone of yellow light cast by the street lamp, in the shadow of the building. He licks his palm to get it wet before shoving it down the front of Misha’s jeans, and Misha gasps and groans into the touch, fucking Jensen’s fist and gasping as the callouses on his palms catch and drag with that edge of roughness that’s oh, so good. He yanks at Jensen’s hair, sucks and tongues the space below the sharp cut of his jaw. He finally gets his hand inside Jensen’s jeans and he drinks in the way Jensen’s mouth gasps open as he twists his fist over the head, revels in the hot splash as Jensen finally comes, moments after Misha himself.

And he likes it even more when Jensen kisses him, sweet and soft, before pulling away to zip up, though he doesn’t say it, just kisses him back before following him back inside the bar.

* * *

It’s a Saturday afternoon when they meet for their date, because, Misha says, they should probably hang out in the daylight at some point or he’s going to start suspecting that Jensen is a vampire. Jensen retorts that maybe Misha is the vampire and Misha shoots back that he does like sucking things, after which point their conversation had devolved into more pleasant subject matter.

Misha picks the place—a trendy steakhouse on the edge of town that serves the red meat Jensen had demanded and which he knows for a fact will be cooked perfectly, but where they also make a killer kale salad that he’s been dying to have again since the first time he’d tried it. He beats Jensen there, ordering a water for himself and Jensen while he waits, flipping idly through the menu and chatting casually with their waitress when she comes to check on him.

He’s got his head down, flipping through the entree section, when someone clears their throat and he looks up to see Jensen sliding into the booth across from him. He has a chance to appreciate the way the worn grey jeans he has on cling to the muscles of his lean thighs before they disappear under the table, and he lets himself enjoy the way the black button-down pulls across his chest when he moves.

“Hey,” Misha says warmly. “You look nice.”

Jensen smiles, a little shy, like he’s not used to hearing those words even though he _must_ know how he looks. “Uh, thanks. You do, too.”

Misha shrugs. He’s never cared much about clothes or his appearance, but he had tried. He knows the blue of his shirt brings out his eyes, or so Kim had told him when she’d texted him that morning to tell him not to wear “that hideous sweater with the wolf on it.”

“Thanks. You find the place okay?”

They exchange the usual awkward pleasantries, pausing only to give the waitress their orders when she comes back, and they’re halfway through the “how was your week” dance when Misha realizes he’s nervous. _Shit_. He can’t remember how long it’s been since he was this nervous on a date, though to be fair, it’s been even longer since he was this into someone. He watches Jensen’s mouth move as he starts in about the deadline on the newest project his crew is working, the way his eyelashes shadow his cheek when he looks down at his hands. That Jensen is beautiful is nothing new—though the light streaming in the window beside them casts a warm glow over his freckled skin and the lovingly-carved angles of his cheekbones and jaw—but the warm flutter of nerves in Misha’s belly as he watches Jensen, the interest that sparks in him as he listens to Jensen talk, that wasn’t something he’d been prepared for when this all started.

“—and we’re gonna have to start pulling all kinds of overtime which sucks but—”Jensen looks up and draws back, startled, when he finds Misha staring intently at him. “What?” He raises a hand to rub nervously at his clean-shaven jaw, as though worried he’s got something on his face.

Misha shakes himself, feeling his face warm at having been caught staring. “Sorry, nothing. Sounds like you’ll be busy for a while coming up. You going to be too tired to make it to open mic night?”

Jensen grimaces. “Maybe. I hope I can still come every couple of weeks but I think I’ll have to cut down a little.”

“Shame,” Misha says, shaking his head with a grin. “All those people who’ve started following you around like fledgling groupies just waiting to get their wings are going to be pretty disappointed.”

Jensen chuckles, a flush creeping up his neck into his jaw. His eyes dart up and away before he says, “But not you?”

“Oh, I’ll definitely be disappointed,” Misha admits without any trouble. “You’ll have to tell me when you’re planning on skipping out so I know when to save my ears. I never used to go to the bar so often, you know. In fact, I made it a habit of skipping open mic night whenever I had a chance.”

“Oh yeah? What changed?”

Misha winks. “I found a damn good reason to keep showing up.”

Jensen laughs, and Misha is hopelessly endeared by the curve of his body, the lines around his eyes. “Who’s the groupie now, Mish?”

The nickname is new, and Misha bites the inside of his cheek against the warmth that fills his chest at how easily it rolls from Jensen’s tongue, like he’d been saying it to himself all along. “You caught me,” he says. “I’m your number one fan. If you’re not careful one day you’re going to come home to find me naked in your bed.” Under the table, he nudges Jensen’s foot with his own, and he fights a grin when Jensen doesn’t pull back, shifts his feet so Misha can slide his boot between both of Jensen’s.

“Not gonna lie, I think I’d be pretty okay with that,” Jensen says, his voice low and eyes darkening with a promising heat. Misha swallows and drags his gaze away with a rueful smile.

“You’re gonna be the death of me,” Misha complains, reaching for his untouched water. “Let’s at least try to make it through this meal without jumping each other’s bones, okay?”

“Okay,” Jensen chuckles, reaching for his own glass.

Misha pulls the drink towards him, but he stops cold when Jensen fishes the straw out of his own glass and sets it off to the side on his napkin, bringing the entire glass up to his mouth to take a long swallow.

Misha watches the entire display with astonishment, until Jensen puts the glass down and startles when he finds Misha staring at him. “What?”

“Did you just—” he stops. He can’t go on, doesn’t even know _how_ to go on.

Jensen seems to know exactly what he’s talking about, because he flushes pink under his freckles and reaches to fiddle idly with the napkin underneath the straw. “It’s a habit, okay?” He flicks a glance at Misha and he looks so adorably embarrassed. “My dad said—when I was a kid my dad said once that there’s no manly way to drink out of a straw and I just. Stopped drinking out of straws.” He glances up quickly, frowning when he sees the slow grin threatening at the corners of Misha’s mouth. “Shut up.”

“Your father says drinking from a straw isn’t manly?” Misha says, in his best Russian accent.

Jensen’s eyes go wide, his eyes falling to Misha’s mouth. “What—”

“Maybe it is too dainty, yes? Like a girl? Or maybe—” Misha holds his own straw between two fingers, rolling it over his bottom lip “—because you have to _suck?_ ”

He fits his lips around his own straw, fighting a smile when he sees Jensen’s eyes dart from his mouth to his eyes and back up. He sucks obscenely at the straw, drawing the water up into his mouth and letting his eyes roll back in his head and he only stops when Jensen gives in and bursts out laughing.

“Jesus, okay, point taken,” Jensen says and he bumps Misha’s foot under the table in chastisement. Misha responds by grinning and hooking a foot around Jensen’s ankle, which Jensen allows with a small smile.

“To be fair, it did kind of look like you were giving a blowjob there.”

Misha shrugs expressively. “And what’s wrong with a blowjob, huh?” he says in his normal voice. He grins teasingly. “You don’t seem to mind them, if I recall correctly.”

Their eyes meet across the table and Jensen’s eyes darken, the hungry expression on his face making a heat spark in Misha’s belly. He leans forward imperceptibly, and he doesn’t miss the pink slide of Jensen’s tongue over his lips.

“Um, am I interrupting something?”

They pull back quickly, looking up to find their waitress hovering with a steaming plate balanced in each hand. Misha grins up at her.

“Not at all,” he says, leaning back to make space for the plate she sets down in front of him. Jensen looks embarrassed, but thanks her sincerely when she sets his steak down in front of him, his crinkly, too-genuine smile leaving her more than a little flustered.

“Is there anything else I can do for you?”

Misha flashes her a grin and a wink. “I think we’re good for now. Thanks.”

She flushes pink under her makeup and wanders off, looking starstruck, and Misha has to fight a chuckle. He looks away from her retreating back to find Jensen frowning slightly at him.

“What?”

Jensen shakes himself. “What? Oh, nothing.” He unfolds the little napkin roll she’d left behind for him, extricating a fork and knife. “Looks good.” He avoids Misha’s gaze as he cuts off a hunk of steak, cooked perfectly medium rare like he’d ordered and Misha had promised to deliver, and Misha opts to let it go for now.

Their lunch is delicious, and they manage to navigate their way through the lingering first date awkwardness until they’re talking easily and openly. Misha learns that Jared is Jensen’s best and oldest friend, and how he was the one who got Jensen the job in construction when he couldn’t figure out what to do with his life. When asked if he enjoys his job, Jensen shrugs and changes the subject, and Misha lets it go, letting Jensen steer him into discussion of how he became a shaper of young minds, or, as Misha says, “a fascist dictator armed with Shakespeare.”

When their waitress returns with the bill nearly two hours later, they decide to split it, each of them slipping a couple bills into the fold before handing it back to her. “Thanks guys,” she says, smiling shyly. “And uh, have fun later.” She winks and darts off, and Misha stares after her, stunned, before bursting out laughing.

“Okay, I guess we’re as obvious as Rich keeps saying.” The sun is dipping low on the horizon, slanting in through the open blinds of the window behind him. He’s surprised how long they’d been here, the day slipping away into that nebulous time too late to still be considered afternoon, but too early to be evening. He slides out from the booth, and lacing his fingers together behind himself to stretch out the stiffness in his muscles from being crunched into the booth for several hours.

“I’m not sure how I feel about that,” Jensen says, discomfort in his voice, but he watches the arch of Misha’s body anyway, muscles pulling in his throat as he swallows.  
“Does that mean you won’t be coming back to my place after all?” Misha says, mock pouting in Jensen’s direction.

Jensen rolls his eyes but he steps closer, the movement almost involuntarily. “Didn’t say that,” he counters, and his voice is low and thick with promise that makes Misha’s throat dry.

He follows Misha back to his place, pulling his truck to a stop in the parking lot and meeting him at the door. They manage to keep control of themselves until they make it to Misha’s apartment, and they kiss their way inside, barely managing to keep their hands to themselves long enough to make it to the bed and get their clothes off. It’s the first time they’ve been fully naked together, their first time in a bed, and Misha admires the beauty of Jensen’s body in the late afternoon sun, the freckles dotted all over his taut skin, the softness around his waist and the firm pull of muscle underneath. He stares, and Jensen flushes with that shyness that doesn’t match his exterior bravado, and he stares back, drinking in the lines of Misha’s own body as he thumbs the cut of his hip, the vault of his ribs.

Misha would have been perfectly content with the hot slide of their bodies together, feeling the heat of Jensen draped over him as they rut together, the glide of their naked skin together and under his hands. But Jensen has other ideas, and he looks up suddenly, pulling away from their kiss and he seems to steel himself, and then he’s making his way down Misha’s body, kissing and sucking and dragging broad palms over his skin until he’s braced between Misha’s legs. Misha has time to suck in a ragged breath, to think about asking Jensen what he’s doing, before Jensen ducks his head to suck Misha’s cock into his mouth.

He throws his head back on a strangled groan, and his hands close into tight fists around the sheets beneath him. Jensen is slow and cautious, sucking experimentally at the head of Misha’s cock before sliding further down, but his mouth is hot and wet, his hand tight around the base and it’s spine-tinglingly good. His inexperience is obvious; it’s clear this is the first blowjob he’s ever given but Misha doesn’t care, not when Jensen is pressing him down into the mattress and bobbing his head, not with the pink stretch of Jensen’s perfect lips around his dick. Jensen doesn’t push too far, doesn’t try to take him into his throat, but he tightens his lips as he grows bolder, sucks harder as he moves his fist to meet his mouth. It’s so hot, seeing him like this, and all it takes is for Misha to glance down and meet Jensen’s eyes before he’s coming, gasping Jensen’s name and his hand tightening where it’s settled in the short strands of Jensen’s hair.

“S-sorry,” he apologizes breathlessly as Jensen kisses his way back up Misha’s body.

Jensen’s reply is a rumble into the curve of Misha’s ribs. “For what?”

“For going off in your mouth,” Misha says, managing an arched eyebrow. “Or didn’t you notice?”

Jensen settles alongside him, his body a hot wall of muscle where he presses against him. He rocks his hips unconsciously in slow rolls against the swell of Misha’s hip. “I noticed. ‘S okay though. I didn’t mind.” He hesitates for a beat, tucking his head into the curve of Misha’s neck to nip at his throat before answering shyly. “Actually, I. I kinda liked it.”

A wild sound escapes Misha’s mouth, and he turns to kiss Jensen fiercely, plunging his tongue in deep to taste himself there. He swallows Jensen’s groan, and then he’s sliding down the bed to suck Jensen off with a fierceness that leaves him breathless and gasping.

Afterwards, when they’re splayed out in Misha’s bed, a respectful distance between them, Jensen says quietly, “I don’t want to do construction forever.”

Misha turns towards him, the pillowcase rustling under the disastrous sex hair he knows he must be sporting. “What do you want to do?”

Jensen is staring at the ceiling, his eyes fixed determinedly on nothing. His hands are braced under his head with all the appearances of nonchalance, but his eyes are distant, and there is tension in the line of his jaw, in the pull of muscles in his throat as he swallows. “I want to sing,” he says, his voice soft and vulnerable. He doesn’t say it but Misha can almost hear it in the way he refuses to meet Misha’s eyes—that he thinks this isn’t possible, that it’s not a real job, not one he thinks he can do.

“Baby, you’re the best singer I’ve ever heard,” Misha says firmly, and he doesn’t dwell on the endearment that slips out without his permission. “If that’s what you want to do, you’ll do it.”

Jensen finally turns his head, and his eyes are wide and vulnerable when he meets Misha’s gaze. “Yeah?”

“Yeah.” He shrugs, the movement awkward with his shoulders pressed into the mattress beneath him. “You might be eating ramen for a while, or you might have to give up on the designer jeans and tailored shirts—” he dodges the half-hearted swat Jensen aims his way “—but you’ll do it.”

Jensen stares at him for a long time, and there’s such open hope in his eyes that Misha has to lean in and kiss him. It’s soft and chaste and tastes of nothing so much as comfort and reassurance, and when Misha finally pulls back it’s to his heart pounding hard in his chest with a need that has nothing to do with sex.

He’s in so much fucking trouble.

They’re quiet for a long time, draped in the words hanging unsaid between them, until finally Jensen says, “I guess I should get going,” and Misha nods reluctantly.

“Want some coffee before you go?”

Jensen smiles softly.  “That would be great. Thanks, Mish,” he says, and leans in to kiss him one more time.


	3. Chapter 3

True to his word, Jensen starts working overtime most weekdays, and even the occasional Saturday. He still finds time to see Misha, though, stopping by after work or on his Sundays off. Misha realizes suddenly, after saying goodbye to Jensen at his door after their fifth date in three weeks, that he is in a relationship, and he finds he’s more than a little okay with that.

They go for meals together and catch a couple movies, they talk and drink and fuck, and they learn each other, slowly. Jensen asks about his dining room table and is surprisingly interested when he finds out Misha has dabbled in carpentry. In turn, he admits to having a more than passing interest in golf, and Misha only laughs at him a little bit for that.

One night they order pizza and get drunk on cheap whiskey. It’s that night that Misha discovers that Jensen is an affectionate drunk, nuzzling into his neck as they watch TV on Misha’s couch, planting lazy kisses into his hair and draping himself all over Misha like a cat. They do nothing more than kiss, the last one shared when he walks Jensen out and sees him to a cab, and Misha can’t shake the smile that clings to his lips for the rest of the night.

Jensen’s new busy schedule keeps him away from the bar and open mic night, and now that Misha knows him a little better, he can see the need building up under his skin in the way he taps his fingers every time music filters out of his TV or the car radio. He wants to be up there, even more than it makes him nervous, and Misha doesn’t push him, but he knows his next visit to RnR will be soon. And finally, four weeks after the last time Jensen sang at RnR, he replies to one of Misha’s texts—this one a selfie from his Thursday morning run featuring an inexplicable goat—to say that he’ll be at open mic night that evening.

Misha is distracted all day through his summer school classes, and he gets to the bar early. Kim and Briana are already there, lounging at the bar and exchanging small talk with Alona and Rich and Rob while they wait for the show to start.

“Hey, Misha!” Kim gives him a one-armed hug that he returns. “Nice of you to grace us with your presence.”

Misha grimaces, giving Rich an expressive shrug. “Sorry guys, I’ve been busy. Shitty, I know.”

“Aww, give the guy a break,” Briana pipes up, dimples showing in her cheeks and eyes twinkling deviously as she winks in his direction. “He’s in looooove.”

Rich snorts. “In _lust_ , maybe. Beer, Misha?”

He accepts the beer Rich slides his way, and spends the next hour catching up with his friends until Rob has to go tune up for the show. By then the bar is packed, open mic night having become increasingly popular with the quality of regular acts they’ve been seeing. There’s the low hum of voices, the clink of glasses and shuffle of feet filling the bar with white noise, broken only by the occasional cheer or the pluck of guitar strings as the band tunes on stage.

The show has already started by the time Jensen walks in the bar, guitar case dangling from one hand. Misha watches him weave his way over to the bar, and he’s grinning by the time Jensen slides up beside him, leaning the case against an empty stool.

“Hey there,” he says grinning up at Jensen.

Jensen smiles back. “Hey, Mish.” He doesn’t bend to kiss him but his eyes flicker over Misha’s face, down to his mouth, and Misha thinks maybe he’s thinking about it. He does lean in close, elbow resting on the bar as he signals Rich for a drink, his hip grazing up against Misha’s thigh. “Didja miss me?”

Misha shrugs nonchalantly, pressing his lips together against the grin threatening to emerge. “Maybe a little.” They haven’t seen each other since Sunday, and Misha realizes just how ridiculous it is that that feels like too long. “Did you miss _me_?”

“I guess,” Jensen says, and he smiles down into the mouth of the beer Rich hands him so that he doesn’t smile at Misha.

Rich glances dispassionately between the two of them. “You guys are disgusting,” he says flatly, and then he disappears, shaking his head as he moves to serve some of the other patrons further down the bar.

“You’ve been working hard,” Misha comments, turning in his seat so he can look at Jensen properly. His knee bumps against Jensen’s leg, and he rearranges himself until Jensen is standing just in the vee of his legs, too close to be platonic but not close enough that a casual observer would take notice. “I’m surprised you wanted to come out tonight.”

Jensen shrugs. “I’ve been working on something,” he says. “Kinda been dying to get up there again.”

Misha grins. “Then I’m really glad you decided to do it.” He looks up at Jensen, sees the nerves in the tight muscles of his shoulders under his t-shirt, but he sees the excitement too. It’s beautiful and contagious. He wants to kiss him.

Jensen finishes his beer and disappears, with a lingering squeeze to Misha’s shoulder and the promise that they’ll meet up afterwards. Misha lets himself be drawn back into conversation with his friends, pausing to cheer along with them when Briana takes the stage. And then it’s Jensen’s turn, and Misha’s entire being sits up and takes notice when he steps out through the heavy black curtain.

The shyness that had held him back when he first started singing at open mic night is gone. He’s still humble and quiet, but there’s a confidence in the set of his shoulders that wasn’t there before. He looks big and powerful when he makes his way up to the mic, guitar slung across his chest, his presence filling up the stage in a way it hadn’t before.

Misha is proud of him, at how far he’s come, and he puts his fingers to his mouth and whistles loudly. Jensen’s head jerks up at the sound, and he finds Misha across the crowded bar and he smiles.

“Hey guys, long time no see. For those of you who don’t know me, I’m Jensen Ackles. Don’t forget to sing along.” He nods to Rob, who counts it down and then the band starts to play.

It starts off with a simple guitar, Billy and Rob skilfully picking out the intro, and then they’re joined by the rhythmic, tinny clash of the cymbal. There are scattered cheers as the audience recognizes the song, and the patrons seem to take up a collective sway as the music fills the room. By the time the rest of the band has joined in, Jensen’s hand strumming the rhythm over his own guitar, he’s moving along to the music too, head nodding along, his bowed knees bending his body into the melody.

When he steps up to the mic to sing, his voice is strong and beautiful and confident. There’s barely a hint of the shaky hesitation from his first performances, and he doesn’t stare at the stage or down at his guitar. Instead he looks out at the crowd, and he grows bolder with each phrase until he’s smiling and belting out the chorus.

Misha watches the way Jensen’s mouth curves around the words, the growl in his voice as he gets into the song, finding his inner rock god. It’s indecently sexy, the shape of his mouth and the fire in his eyes, and Misha’s a strong breeze away from being hard in his jeans. It’s the sexiest thing he’s ever seen, and when Jensen finds him in the crowd and locks eyes with him, it’s all he can do not to moan. One day he’s going to make Jensen sing for him while he jacks off—he thinks the low growl of his voice like this would be all he needed to get him there.

He barely hears the cheering as the song finishes, ignores the chuckles of his friends as he stares. On stage, Jensen pulls Rob in for a hug, thumping a fist on his narrow back, and then he’s waving to the crowd, mouth split in a stunning smile that creases his face in beautiful ways, before he disappears back through the curtain. Misha is out of his seat before Jensen’s gone, fishing in his pocket for a couple bills to settle his tab and waving distractedly at his friends as he makes his way backstage.

Jensen’s alone in the back room, the curtain that leads up to the stage still swishing behind the singer who took the stage after him. He’s laying his guitar reverently in his case, and he stills when Misha plasters himself up against his back, curving over him to whisper into his ear.

“Hey, stud. Wanna go somewhere more private?”

Jensen chuckles, the tension flowing out of him as he snaps his guitar case shut. “You’re such a dork,” he says, but he presses back into the cradle of Misha’s hips, turning his head a little so Misha’s lips brush against his cheekbone. “What’s your hurry? We got all night.”

“Jensen,” Misha says, low and husky, and he rubs his half-hard cock against Jensen’s ass, letting him feel it. “I want you to fuck me.”

He’s pressed so close that he feels it against his chest when Jensen’s breath catches, then the unsteady rush of it when he lets it go. His hands where they rest against the top of the guitar case tense, his fingers tightening around the edges. Misha turns his head to skim the tip of his nose over the tight line of Jensen’s neck, fighting back a smile.

“Okay,” Jensen says finally, and his voice is a low growl, “ _fuck_ , okay, let’s get the hell out of here.”

Misha laughs at the speed with which Jensen finishes packing up, downs the rest of his beer, and follows him, still laughing, out the back door of the bar.

The cab ride back to Jensen’s place is its own kind of torture. If he thought Jensen would be even slightly okay with it, he would already be bent over the width of the bench seat, blowing him in the back of this dirty cab, heedless of the driver humming tunelessly with his headphones in. Jensen could be quiet—though that’s not how Misha wants him—and Misha doesn’t much care what the driver thinks, but he knows Jensen isn’t ready for that kind of public display.

As it is, he plasters himself to the far side of the car to keep from touching, pressing his forehead to the cool glass and determinedly not looking at Jensen. There’s a warm rush of arousal beating in his veins along with the slight fuzzy buzz of alcohol, and he feels Jensen on the seat next to him as if they were pressed up against each other and not confined to their respective sides.

Jensen pays the cab driver and they don’t speak as it pulls away from the curb, moving with unspoken accord toward his apartment building. Misha sequesters himself to the far side of the elevator, inspecting his nails nonchalantly and fighting a smile as Jensen’s fingers tap impatiently against his guitar case where it’s propped up between his feet.

He chances a glance at Jensen and finds him staring across the elevator at him. Jensen flushes, but doesn’t look away, and there’s something hot and hungry in his gaze that hooks into Misha’s abdomen and _pulls_. He’s tempted to close the distance between them, to kiss him filthy and needy until they get to Jensen’s floor, but he likes this tension building between them, the sweet ache of anticipation and need building under his skin and low in his belly and between his legs. He doesn’t look away, their eyes locked across the narrow space, and he can see the question in Jensen’s eyes, half a thought away from begging, asking Misha to close the distance and touch him, kiss him, anything. He smiles, knowing, and Jensen shifts and rolls his eyes, looking pointedly away.

The elevator dings and the doors slip open, and Jensen lets his breath out in a rush. Misha laughs and follows him out the door, down the hallway to his apartment.

They’re barely inside the door before Misha lets the tension between them snap, pushing himself forward until he’s pressed up tight against Jensen’s chest, kissing him harsh and biting and needing. Jensen groans as he fumbles the door shut and gropes blindly for the lock, and his lips part under the insistent press of Misha’s tongue.  

“You were so hot up there tonight, Jensen,” Misha says between kisses, walking forward until Jensen’s back runs into the closed door. “So fucking hot. Wanted to jump you the second you stepped offstage.”

Jensen laughs breathlessly, his hands fisted in the fabric of Misha’s t-shirt. “Why didn’t you? Bar bathroom not good enough for you anymore?”

And yeah, maybe they’d messed around in the bathroom at RnR more than once. Sue him. Misha grins, pressing his hips forward to grind into Jensen’s. “I need privacy for what I want to do to you tonight, baby.” He ducks under the line of Jensen’s jaw, nudging upwards until he tilts his head, obligingly baring his neck to Misha’s mouth.

“Wh— _fuck_ , Mish—what’s that?”

Misha nips gently at the side of Jensen’s neck, kissing over the sting before smiling. “I already told you.” He works a hand between them, dragging it slowly over the line of Jensen’s hip, finding Jensen’s hard dick inside his jeans and squeezing. “I want you to fuck me with that big cock, want you inside me.”

Jensen groans, his head falling back to thump against the door, his hand tightening in the fabric of Misha’s shirt where it pulls tight over his shoulders. “Should we move this to the bedroom?”

“What, you don’t want to fuck me up against this door?” Misha asks, but he pulls back with a grin, tugging Jensen with him in the direction of Jensen’s bedroom.

“Maybe—mmm—” Jensen breaks off to kiss him “—maybe next time.”

Misha shoulders open the door of Jensen’s bedroom, and ducks out of Jensen’s reach, ignoring his stifled protest. He reaches for the hem of his own shirt to pull it up with an exaggerated roll of his body, eyes finding Jensen’s as he pulls it over his head, dropping it on the floor. Jensen’s eyes are wide and dark, staring, and Misha preens just a little at the attention as he reaches for the button on his jeans.

“I can’t believe I’m going to fuck Jensen fucking Ackles tonight,” Misha says, sliding down the zipper and pushing the jeans over his hips, taking his boxers with them. “Fucking _rockstar_ Jensen Ackles.”

Jensen laughs, but even in the dimly-lit room MIsha can see the flush that creeps out from under the neck of his t-shirt. “Misha…”

Misha grins slowly, peeling his jeans and socks all the way off until he’s standing naked in the middle of Jensen’s bedroom. “I would let him do anything to me,” he growls, slinking forward until he can pull roughly at Jensen’s clothes. “That voice, that body… I can’t believe _I_ get to fuck the hottest rockstar in the world.”

Jensen groans as Misha bites at the underside of his chin, then turns his head to find Misha’s lips in a bruising kiss. “Shut—shut the fuck up,” he says, breathless and amused and wrecked and Misha just chuckles into his mouth as he works his jeans open and plunges his hand inside, working over Jensen’s cock where it’s hard and thick and leaking wet.

“Take your shirt off,” Misha demands, twisting his hand and tightening it on the upstroke, and Jensen hurries to comply, his hips jerking forward to fuck into Misha’s fist. His pants are next, and Misha releases his cock to fall to his knees, teasing Jensen with his proximity to his erection as he works the slim-cut jeans over his feet and ankles and off.

He grins up at Jensen when his hands fall to fist in the unruly mess of Misha’s hair, and he leans in to nip at the soft, freckled skin of Jensen’s inner thigh, letting his stubbled cheek skim roughly over Jensen’s straining dick. He rubs his cheek back and forth, drinking in the sounds Jensen makes above him, reveling in the sting where Jensen tugs desperately at his hair.

“Still a fucking cocktease,” Jensen grunts, and he chokes off into a moan when Misha turns his head to mouth at Jensen’s balls. He sucks first one, then the other into his mouth, then draws back to give one long, tantalizing lick up Jensen’s shaft, lapping up the bitter precome before rising to his feet.

Jensen makes the kind of bereft needy sound that Misha loves, the kind Jensen always denies making, and Misha leans in to kiss him. “Don’t worry baby, gonna give you what you need in a minute. Gonna let you have everything.” He presses Jensen towards the bed, kissing him all the way, until the back of Jensen’s legs find the mattress and he tumbles backward onto the bed. Misha follows, straddling Jensen’s naked body and kissing him hungrily as he grinds down onto Jensen’s cock.

“Please tell me you have lube,” Misha says, turning his head to bite at Jensen’s earlobe.

“Yeah, in the—in the drawer,” Jensen manages, voice gruff and deep, waving a hand vaguely in the direction of the nightstand. He thrusts up against Misha’s ass and Misha allows it, rocking into it and groaning into Jensen’s ear before dislodging himself from Jensen’s lap to root through the drawer, coming up with an open bottle of lube and a condom.

He settles himself back in Jensen’s lap, smirking at the way Jensen’s eyes, dark with need, follow his every movement. He runs his free hand down Jensen’s chest, thumbing over a nipple, grazing over the vault of his ribs. He trails the tips of his fingers over Jensen’s cock, hard and flush against his belly, not enough stimulation to get him anywhere but enough to tease, before tearing open the condom and rolling it down Jensen’s shaft.

Misha pulls his hand back, popping open the bottle of lube. He coats the fingers of his own right hand generously, and then he’s reaching back behind himself and up, slick fingers finding and circling around his hole. He likes the tease, the rush of anticipation, and he plays with his rim before slipping one finger in. His eyes find Jensen’s and he stares, getting off more on Jensen’s sharp intake of breath and the way his eyes light up with heat and need than on the sensation itself, though it feels damn good.

Oh, does it feel good: Jensen’s eyes locked on him as he slides a second finger inside himself, wasting no time, the glide of Jensen’s hands up his thighs over the hard cut of Misha’s hips down to his erection. Jensen fists his cock and works it in slow, smooth strokes as Misha opens himself up fast, hungry and eager to replace his fingers with Jensen’s dick. Too soon he can feel the heat building low in his belly, the tight curl of pleasure as his fingers—three of them now—graze over his prostate just as Jensen’s fist twists around the wet head of his erection. There’s a temptation there, to give in to that pull, to fuck back on his fingers and forward into Jensen’s tight grip, but that’s not what he wants this time.

“Stop,” Misha says, and Jensen does, giving one last squeeze as if in regret before pulling his hand back. Misha pulls his fingers out of himself and sits up on his knees, reaching beneath himself to position Jensen’s dick the way he wants it.

“Mish—” Jensen starts but whatever he was going to say is choked off in a moan as Misha lowers himself down over Jensen’s dick, fast and sure as he works him in deep. Jensen’s hung and there’s a burn and a stretch that Misha relishes, throwing back his head and groaning Jensen’s name as he’s filled up, slow and so good. Jensen’s fingers clench tight in the taut muscle of Misha’s thighs, and Misha forces himself to open his eyes, to take in the way Jensen’s pupils have blown wide, his mouth slack and panting, his body tense and filled up with pleasure.

He’s beautiful like this and Misha almost tells him so, stopping himself at the last moment. Instead he braces himself with one hand on Jensen’s chest, tightens his thighs and raises himself up until the head of Jensen’s cock is tugging at his rim. He grins down at Jensen, bites his lip, and slams himself back down.

The sound that Jensen makes at that is so gorgeous, so gruff and wanton that Misha does it again, and again, until he falls into a rhythm, fucking himself on Jensen’s dick with hungry ferocity. Jensen’s hands skim up his thighs, over his abdomen and chest, drinking him in with touch before settling on his hips, pulling him back down into the upward thrust of his hips. The room is filled with their grunts and gasps, punctuated by the slapping of their bodies together.

“Mish— _fuck,_ you feel good,” Jensen chokes out. “So fuckin’ tight, holy shit.”

Misha smirks as best he can around a gasp and fucks himself down harder. “Knew you’d love this,” he says, choking back a whine when Jensen jerks his hips up, landing a good hit on his prostate. He laughs breathlessly at the look Jensen gives him. “Don’t worry, I love it too. Fuck, I love your dick, baby.”

It’s Jensen’s turn to laugh, and the motion of his body does interesting things to Misha where they’re joined. His hands skate up Misha’s sides in a way that’s almost tender, and Misha pries them off of him but only to pin them to the bed on either side of his head and kiss him, deep and messy and desperate.

And like this, with their bodies pressed tight together from their chests all the way down to where they’re joined, Misha’s dick sandwiched between them, is fucking magical. Jensen gets his feet up under him, braced on the mattress, and he fucks up harder into Misha’s body just as Misha works his hips back. It’s good, it’s so fucking good, Jensen’s thick cock working roughly against his prostate, filling him over and over, the hot friction of their bodies rubbing Misha’s erection between them. He loves the sounds Jensen is making, loud and uninhibited here in the privacy of his bedroom in the way he never is when they’ve fooled around in more public spaces. He loves the hot slide of their sweaty bodies, the thick thrust of Jensen’s big dick filling him up. And when he lets go of one of Jensen’s hands to grip his hair the way he knows Jensen likes, he loves the way that Jensen’s hand finds the back of his neck, pulling him deeper into their kiss, and that, finally, is what makes him come.

He makes a desperate noise into Jensen’s mouth as he climaxes, his dick pulsing wetly between them as Jensen’s powerful thrusts drive another wave of pleasure out of him. Jensen makes an answering sound, thrusting wildly into the clenching heat of Misha’s body and then he’s coming too, his body tensing underneath Misha as he lets go.

They lay there, wet and filthy and sated, until Jensen gently dislodges him, apologizing quietly when Misha whimpers as Jensen slips out of him. He disappears into the ensuite bathroom, returning with a warm cloth, and Misha is surprised at the tenderness with which he wipes him clean before tossing the cloth into the laundry hamper in the corner and clambering back into bed.

“Well, I guess I should go,” Misha says, preparing himself to force his orgasm-heavy body out of bed. It’s harder than it sounds; Jensen smells good and his bed is warm, and Misha wants nothing more than to pull the covers up around himself and fall asleep. He’s almost worked himself up to move—seriously, he’s about five seconds away from sitting up, he swears—when Jensen turns, finding his right wrist under the covers.

“Stay,” he says gruffly, in that tone of voice Misha has dubbed his manly-man voice, the one that means what he wants is warring with what he thinks he _should_ want, based on the bullshit societal norms that run his life. “You can stay. If you want.”

Misha turns on his side, cocking a sarcastic eyebrow at him. “Well since you’re so enthusiastic about it.”

Jensen huffs his frustration. “C’mon man, you gonna make me say it?”

“Yep,” Misha replies cheerfully, waiting.

Jensen rolls his eyes and in the dim light filtering in from the street outside, Misha sees him flush prettily. “Please stay,” he says, this time softly, and his thumb skims over the delicate skin on the inside of Misha’s wrist, surprisingly tender.

“Okay,” Misha agrees cheerfully, settling down deeper into the bed, and he’s surprised when Jensen turns away from him, tugging at his wrist until he turns too, fitting himself up against Jensen’s back. The arm in Jensen’s grip is drawn over Jensen’s broad body until he’s all wrapped up, the consummate little spoon.

“Jensen Ackles,” Misha says, the words pressed into the skin of Jensen’s back, amusement thick in his voice. “You are a cuddler.” Jensen turns to look over his shoulder and scowls, which only makes Misha laugh harder. “Don’t worry, I won’t tell anyone.”

He tightens his arms where they’re curled around Jensen’s waist, pressing a soft kiss to the warm flesh of his shoulder. He feels Jensen’s arms settle over his, tucked in close and warm, and Misha closes his eyes, a smile playing on his lips.

* * *

Misha discovers that the only thing he likes better than falling asleep next to Jensen is waking up next to Jensen, and it’s not even about sex (although there had been more of that in the morning, too.) No, it’s in the soft shadow cast by Jensen’s eyelashes over his cheek in the golden light of morning, the sweet way he presses in closer to Misha before he’s fully awake, the adorable grumble when he finally stirs into wakefulness like he really, really hates that they’re awake. It’s in closed-mouth kisses when they both still have morning breath, and coffee drunk standing up at Jensen’s kitchen counter, and Jensen’s small, tired smile when they talk for hours before Misha has to leave.

He realizes with no small degree of trepidation, as he makes his way home from Jensen’s apartment, that he is falling hard for Jensen in every way imaginable. It’s not what he’d been looking for, when he first saw Jensen up on stage, tall and rough and beautiful but also ridiculously, endearingly shy, but he finds he likes it, the warmth in his gut with the knowledge carrying him through the rest of the week.

They start spending nights together regularly, and Misha laughs, warm and pleased, the first time Jensen shows up at his place with an embarrassed flush and an overnight bag (“What? It’s just easier than rushing home before work. Shut up.”) and the first time Misha sees Jensen in his Carhartts and the ratty t-shirt he has on underneath, he has to push him up against the door to give him a thorough kiss goodbye. The image gets him through a harrowing day of teaching his summer school English class and an afternoon of prep work, and he grills them steaks that night before they fall into bed together. It’s shockingly domestic and Misha hates to admit that he fucking loves it, wants as much of it as he can get.

Of course, that’s when everything goes to hell.

His classes finished for the day, he’s busy shuffling papers on his desk when there’s a knock at the door. He looks up to find Ruth standing there, arms crossed over her chest as she leans up against his doorjam.

“Good afternoon, Professor Collins.” She arches an eyebrow at him. “You have time in your busy schedule for lunch with us poor summer semester victims?”

Misha frowns. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

Ruth smirks, tossing long red hair over one slim shoulder. “Just that since you got yourself a boyfriend, we hardly see you anymore.”

“He’s not my boyfriend,” Misha says automatically, though something in him twists excitedly at the word. “And since when did you even know I was dating someone?”

Ruth arches a carefully sculpted eyebrow at him. “Since you never shut up about him. We’re not stupid, honey.”

Misha rolls his eyes, shovelling papers into his messenger bag and slinging it over his shoulder. It has been a while since he caught lunch with his fellow instructors and it would be nice to catch up with them. “Yeah, yeah. We going for lunch, or what?”

“Lunch,” Ruth confirms, spinning on her heel to lead him out of the room. “Erica’s getting us a table as we speak.”

“What, you just assumed I’d say yes?”

She casts her patented Ruthie Connell smirk at him over one slim shoulder. “Darlin’, you’re a sure thing.” She winks and Misha has to grin.

Erica is already set up at a table at their favorite cafe, and she spots them through the heavy, dark sunglasses she has perched on her delicate nose and waves enthusiastically. He waves back, and he and Ruth make their way over to the table. He deposits his bag over the back of his chair and Ruthie in the chair between himself and Erica, then disappears to get them drinks. It hasn’t been so long that he forgets what they like, and he figures that it’s the least he can do to make it up to them since he’s apparently been too busy with Jensen and at Rob and Rich’s bar to spend time with his work friends.

He’s turning back to their little table, iced tea for Erica, water for himself, and hot tea with lemon for Ruth, held in a careful triangle between his steepled fingers, when he spots a familiar figure, pushing himself to his feet from a nearby table. Jensen is still dressed for work, sawdust and dirt clinging to the worn brown of his pants, and there’s a smudge of dirt over his cheekbone and his hair is flat from where it had been squashed under a hard hat all day, but he looks beautiful as always, and the unexpected sight of him sends a welcome thrill pulsing through Misha’s body. He must be taking a break for lunch, and now that he thinks of it, Misha does remember him mentioning starting a job in this area of town. As he watches, Jensen fishes in his back pocket for his wallet, digging for a twenty that he slides under the empty glass in the middle of the table to keep it from blowing away.

Misha makes his way over to the table, and there’s a smile already curling his lips when he stops at Jensen’s side. “Well hey, fancy meeting you here,” he says warmly, and that nervous, pleased thrill that always comes from unexpectedly seeing someone he likes pushes him forward until he’s close, pressing, familiar, into Jensen’s space.

Jensen startles, an impressive array of emotions racing over his face. There’s surprise first, which Misha had expected, then pleasure, which he hadn’t but maybe had hoped for, and then Jensen’s eyes flick up to the tall guy in dirty jeans standing up at the table across from him—Jared, Misha remembers, from the bar that first night—with his hair pulled back in a tiny ponytail at the back of his head. Jensen’s face goes still, red under the dirt and freckles, and then he’s raking a nervous hand through his flattened hair and taking what looks like an involuntary step back.

“Oh hey man, how’s it going?” Jensen’s voice, when he speaks is deep and gruff, and it sounds so different to the way he normally sounds when he talks to Misha that he frowns.

“Not bad,” Misha says, careful. “This is a nice surprise. I didn’t expect to see you until later.”

Jensen’s eyes dart to Jared, who’s looking back and forth between them with curiosity etched all over his features, and back again. “Uh, yeah, if you say so.”

Misha squints at him, confused, before turning to the other man at the table. “Hi, I’m Misha.” He puts the drinks down on Jensen’s table, extending a hand across it to shake.

“Jared,” he replies, accepting Misha’s hand in his enormous paw and shaking. “You were at the bar that one time, right? Nice to meet you.”

“Same here,” he replies, grinning. “I’ve heard a lot about you.”

Jared’s brow furrows. “Really? That’s weird. I don’t think Jensen has mentioned you.”

“He hasn’t?” Misha glances at Jensen, who has distanced himself even more, his body stiff and tilted away from Misha. His eyes are fixed on the table, his finger rubbing distractedly at a smudge on the wooden surface of the table. And Misha understands, finally. He feels it like a punch in the gut, the air sweeping out of him in a whoosh that leaves him tight and pained.  Jensen hasn’t told his friends about him. And now here he is, acting like he barely knows him, that they aren’t even together.

Misha had gotten so caught up in their— _whatever_ this is, that he forgot that Jensen didn’t want to be more with him, with another man. He forgot, with all the nights together and the confessions and the amazing sex and the affectionate touches when no one was looking, to keep Jensen at arms length, to keep himself safe from what he’s feeling now.

He swallows hard, and pushes down the wave of hurt that rushes up into his throat. “Well, it was nice to meet you, Jared. I guess I won’t be seeing you.” He picks up the drinks from where he’d deposited them, trying his damndest not to spill. He flips a grin in Jared’s direction, hoping it doesn’t look too sickly, and doesn’t look at Jensen at all, before he’s turning away, back to where Ruth and Erica are waiting.

He gets a few steps away before there’s a hand closing on his upper arm, spinning him around. Erica’s iced tea splashes all over his hands and he glares up at Jensen, who looks sheepish and tight-faced.

“Mish,” he starts up, but Misha’s not in the mood for whatever Jensen has to say.

“Shut up,” he hisses angrily. “So your best friend doesn’t even know who I am?” He glares down at the hand still curled around his bicep. “Let go of me.”

Jensen does, his hand dropping limply back to his side. “I’m sorry, Misha. I didn’t—” he takes a shaky, frustrated breath. “I can’t—”

“You can’t what? You can’t admit you’re dating a man? You’re so ashamed of me you can’t even act like we’re friends?”

“I’m sorry—”

Misha takes a deep breath, fights back the pain in his chest, the pounding in his ears. He thinks involuntarily of the way his stomach had flipped when Ruth had said the word ‘boyfriend’ and it hurts, that he’d been falling so hard and so fast, and Jensen was so embarrassed of him he couldn’t even tell his best friend. He scoffs, “Yeah. I’m sure you are.”

Jensen’s mouth falls open, and then all the lines of his face harden. “What about you? You flirt with everything that moves, how am I even supposed to know you give a shit about me?”

“What?” Misha is momentarily speechless, but then he shakes his head, hard. “Don’t try to turn your bullshit around on me.” He turns away from Jensen, then stops, glancing over his shoulder. He’s not going back in the closet for anyone. He makes a decision.

“Well now you don’t have to worry about looking gay, Jensen. Because you’re not in a relationship with a man anymore.”

He leaves Jensen standing there in the middle of the cafe, ignoring the curious glances as he makes his way back over to his own table where his friends are waiting. He doesn’t look back over his shoulder to watch Jensen leave, sliding back into his seat without a single backward glance.

“Who was that?” Erica asks, curiosity and concern warring on her face.

Misha shakes his head, avoids her eyes as he passes out the drinks. “No one,” he says, past the hard lump in his throat. “He’s no one.”

He doesn’t miss the concerned glance that passes between Erica and Ruth, the silent communication that they’ve cultivated over the years they’ve been friends and colleagues, but when he pipes up, loud and overly cheerful about lesson plans and the kid in his class who insists on arguing with everything he says, they let him do it, and for that, he’s eternally grateful.

* * *

He makes it a whole week before he winds up back at RnR, with the intention of indulging in some good old fashioned drinking his problems away. It’s Wednesday and the bar is mercifully empty, only a few scattered patrons munching on peanuts and talking over beers, so Misha parks himself up at the bar where Rich is polishing glasses fresh out of the washer and proceeds to order a whiskey.

“Don’t you ever go home?” Misha asks as he tosses back the first swig.

Rich cocks an eyebrow at him. “And if I did, who the hell would be here to listen to you whine about whatever it is that’s got your panties all twisted up and looking like you been sucking on lemons?” Misha snorts, and Rich puts down the glass. “Jesus. You _are_ fucked up. What happened?”

After that the whole story comes pouring out—the dating, the sleeping over, the accidental run in at the cafe that had resulted in Jensen behaving as though he vehemently wished that Misha didn’t exist, the five or so phone calls Jensen had made since that Misha had decisively ignored. He leaves out the part about his feelings, about how he’d been falling hard, and Jensen had ripped his fucking heart out of his chest and stomped on it with those designer boots he wears.

Rich curses, reaches under the bar for the whiskey and refills his glass without being prompted. “That fucking blows, man. Sorry.”

Misha raises the glass in salute, a wry smile pasted to his lips before he downs half of it in one quick, burning pull. “Thanks,” he rasps. “Can we talk about something else, please?”

“Sure thing,” Rich says, and his expression is a little too understanding, but he launches into a long-winded story about the fryer in the back going kaput, and his and Rob’s ill-advised attempt to fix it before Alona had shoved them both out of the way and got the job done herself.

Rob stops by for a couple of rounds, before disappearing to the back when the rest of his band arrives to work on their budding album. Rich must be feeling generous, or sorry for him or something, because he keeps filling up Misha’s glass and Misha keeps downing it until he’s feeling pleasantly fuzzy, and he keeps the conversation going, bouncing from one unimportant topic to the next, which Misha appreciates.

He’s interrupted in the middle of complaining about the new ridiculous song Rob had been composing about him by the dull thud of a finger to a microphone, the sound echoing through speakers no one had realized were on. Misha looks up, confused, to find Rob up at the mic, guitar slung over his shoulder, the rest of the band filing out to fill the stage behind them.

Misha glances back at Rich, to find him similarly dumbfounded, his brow furrowed as he stares across the room at his friend. “What the hell’s Rob doing on stage? It’s Wednesday.” He rolls his eyes. “I gotta keep a better handle on that guy.”

“Hey there everyone,” Rob says in that cute, squirrely way he has. “Uh, I know it’s not open mic night and this isn’t the usual beat for a Wednesday, but we’ve got something special for you guys tonight.” He glances up nervously, and cold dread rushes through Misha when Rob’s eyes meet his. “It’s a special performance—one time only, and I think you’re going to like it. C’mon out, buddy.”

He steps back from the microphone to the side of the stage, setting his iPad on the stand in front of him, and he turns back to the curtain, expectantly. Right on cue, the black fabric swishes back—and Misha feels the bottom drop out of his stomach.

It’s Jensen.

He looks nervous up on stage again, like he hasn’t for weeks. He’s wearing a dark blue button-up and grey khakis instead of the t-shirt and jeans he usually wears on performance nights, and even stranger than that, he’s finished the look with a tailored blazer. He looks gorgeous, but Jensen always does, and Misha doesn’t let himself dwell on the way those pants hug his strong thighs, or the way that coat emphasizes his trim waist. He steps up to the microphone, repositions his guitar strap where it’s draped over his shoulder.

Misha jerks himself to his feet. “I gotta go,” he tells Rich, studiously avoiding his friend’s eyes as he shrugs into his coat, struggling to get out of there before Jensen starts singing. His hand gets caught in his sleeve, because of course it fucking does, and he swears as he struggles into it. He glances up, glaring at his friend as if daring him to laugh, but he’s not even smiling. The look Rich gives him is pained.

“Misha—”

“I gotta go.”

Misha doesn’t look back. He doesn’t look back all the way out the bar, to the curb where he flags down a cab, or as it drives away, trying hard not to think about how Jensen looked up on that stage, or how he would sound as he sang, or even worse, the way seeing him makes longing and sadness well up, heavy, in Misha’s chest.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Song in this chapter is 'Simple Man' by Lynyrd Skynyrd. Again. Oops.


	4. Chapter 4

Misha ignores the four or so messages his friends leave on his voicemail that night, answers the texts with the usual nonchalance, as if he hadn’t just been hollowed out by some beautiful asshole with too-green eyes. How Jensen knew he was there is anyone’s guess, but Misha’s money is on Rob being the culprit; the guy’s always been a hopeless romantic and if Jensen was smart enough to ask… well, he wouldn’t be surprised if Rob caved. He doesn’t know for sure, but refuses to talk about it any further to anyone, because he doesn’t need to hear the “I told you so”s and the “it’ll be okay”s, and because he’s fine. He’s just fucking fine.

He forces himself out on his morning run the next day, listening to trance and classical and alternative—anything but classic rock—and losing himself in the rhythmic fall of his feet on the concrete, the steady pumping of his legs and arms as he moves. He runs even further than usual, pushing himself until his legs are tired and trembling, until the faded grey fabric of his t-shirt is clinging damply to his chest with sweat, and then he pushes himself faster on the run back home. He pauses only to take a drink of water from the bottle strapped to his hip, and to snap a picture of a fat orange cat where it weaves along the posts of a fence, butting its head against his outstretched hand.

He almost texts the picture to Jensen, has the message open and the photo attached before he remembers, and tucks his phone firmly away.

The stairs up to his third floor apartment are difficult with his leg muscles fatigued as they are, but somehow he makes it, relishing the idea of a long shower and a hearty breakfast afterwards. His attention’s on his phone as he makes his way down the hallway to his apartment, recording the stats from today’s run in his running app, which is why he doesn’t see Jensen, sitting on the floor with his legs stretched out across the hallway in front of him, until he nearly trips over him.

“Jesus!” Misha grinds to a halt, his feet stuttering as he takes an overly large step over Jensen’s legs to avoid stepping on them.  “What the fuck?”

“Head in the clouds again, Mish?” Jensen asks, with a grin as he shoves himself to his feet. He looks good, but Jensen always looks good, wearing nice jeans with the cuffs turned up where they brush against dark brown shoes, and a neat, dark grey button-down. His guitar case is standing up against the wall next to him, propped up at an angle.

Misha glares at him. “What are you doing here?” he barks. “I think you made it pretty clear you didn’t want anything to do with me.”

Jensen’s smile falters, the cocky bravado fading. Without it, he looks smaller, softer, his eyes greener and brighter as he steels himself and looks determinedly into Misha’s.

“I came to apologize,” he says. “I was a dick, Misha, and you deserved better than—” he breaks off suddenly, as a door opens down the hall, and Misha’s neighbor steps out into the hall to scoop up her newspaper.

“Boys,” she says with a slow grin, one dark eyebrow ticking up suggestively. “Problem?”

Misha raises a hand in her direction. “We’re good, Traci, thanks.” Traci shrugs and steps back inside, but not before giving Jensen a clear once-over. Misha rolls his eyes.

Jensen shuffles awkwardly. “Can we, uh. Can we do this inside, please?”  He shifts, and Misha’s gaze darts to his hand at the crinkle of plastic when he moves.

Misha stares at his hand before looking up to meet his eyes. “You bought me _flowers_?” he asks skeptically, fighting down amusement. A flush creeps up from the collar of Jensen’s shirt, stretching up his neck into his ears and face. Misha struggles not to notice how adorable it is and fails spectacularly.

“I don’t know!” Jensen bursts out, gruffly. “You’re the first guy I’ve ever dated; I don’t know what the protocol is for when you piss off your boyfriend.” His blush darkens as soon as the word is out of his mouth, like he hadn’t meant to say it, but he swallows hard and doesn’t take it back.

Misha ignores the traitorous longing that flutters through his stomach. “I don’t think you’ve earned the right to call me that,” he says, his voice carefully even.

Jensen flinches. “I know. Sorry. Just—can I come in?”

Misha hesitates.

“Please?”

He tries not to meet Jensen’s eyes, keeping his gaze firmly fixed on his left shoulder, but he can feel the way Jensen’s staring at him and he can’t help it: he looks. Jensen’s eyes are green and wide and bright, and the pleading in them is Disney Princess levels of Too Fucking Much.

Misha sighs, and steps past him, pulling his house key from an inner pocket of his shorts and for once failing to make an innuendo out of pushing his hand inside his own waistband. He’s too tired, too hurt to push at Jensen today. He opens the door and steps inside, holding it open and gesturing into the apartment silently. Jensen scoops up his guitar and scrambles inside, and Misha closes and locks it behind him.

“I’m going to take a shower,” Misha says, plucking at his shirt where it clings damp and disgusting to his chest. “And after, if you still want to, we can talk.” He eyes the bouquet of flowers in Jensen’s hand, where’s he holding them awkwardly at chest level. They’re yellow daisies, and they’re beautiful. “Get those in water.”

He disappears down the hallway toward the bathroom, leaving Jensen to deal with the flowers and stew in his own remorse. He looks sorry, but Misha’s not going to let it go that easily. The flowers might be pretty and it’s more than a little sweet that Jensen made the effort to buy them despite his ridiculous fixation on gender norms and what guys should or shouldn’t do, but that doesn’t change that Jensen isn’t ready to be out, might never be ready. And Misha isn’t going to be anyone’s dirty little secret.

He spends longer in the shower than strictly necessary, his hands braced against the cold tile wall as hot water sluices down his back, dripping out of his hair and running over his closed eyes. He’s not sure what Jensen is going to say, or if he even wants to hear it, though a part of him already yearns to be close to him again. As eager as he is to pretend that Jensen was just a fling, a good fuck and a fun time, he knows he’s more than that.  

Eventually the water starts to run cold and he reluctantly switches off the stream of water, running hands back through his hair to squeeze the excess water out of it. He towels off and tosses the wet towel over the still damp wall of the shower before heading back to his bedroom buck-ass naked and pulling on briefs and loose, worn jeans and a t-shirt. The shirt has a hole in the armpit but it’s his favorite, and he feels vulnerable, though he doesn’t want to admit it, and the well-worn cotton gives him a small degree of comfort.

When he reappears in the mouth of the hallway, Jensen is sitting, calculatedly casual, on his sofa, one leg crossed over the other with the ankle balanced over his knee. He straightens as soon as he sees Misha, standing hastily. He smooths his shirt nervously, thick fingers rustling over the grey fabric where it falls close around his stomach and waist. Misha pries his eyes away.

He takes a seat at the table, noting with irritated amusement that Jensen had done exactly as he said, and the flowers are in a vase half-filled with water, positioned exactly in the center of the table and arranged meticulously in their container. Jensen follows him, wincing as the chair scrapes along the hardwood and folding himself awkwardly into it.

“So,” Misha says finally. “You had something you wanted to say to me.”

Jensen takes a deep breath, lets it out in a rush. “Yeah. Yeah I do.” He runs his palms over the surface of the table, forward and back, the wood rasping softly against his palms. “I wanted to say I’m sorry.”

Misha leans back, distancing himself from Jensen as best he can while still maintaining his seat. “For what?”

“For being a jackass the other day. Because I was. A jackass. It’s just—I’m not out, I’ve never acted on this thing before—”

“This thing being your attraction to men as well as women?” Misha asks, raising an unimpressed eyebrow.

Jensen nods jerkily. “Yeah. Yeah, and I just didn’t know how to handle it and I panicked, okay? But that’s not who I want to be. I realized I’m dealing with a lot of shit from the way I was raised or whatever, and it really fucking stinks but I’m dealing with it.”

Misha feels a smile tug at the corner of his mouth and he shoves it down. “Shit like worrying you might look gay when you drink out of a straw?”

“Shut up,” Jensen says around a huff of laughter. “I told my friends about you, though, after you left. They were all cool with it. Danneel even smacked me over the back of the head, for thinking they wouldn’t be.” He rubs the back of his head, wincing in memory.

“I like this Danneel person.”

Jensen shoots him a glare before his face stills and he fidgets nervously. “Also, I uh. What I said at the cafe, about not knowing if you really liked me.”

Misha’s brow furrows. “Yeah, what was that about?”

Jensen looks up at him, reaching up to scrub a hand over the lower half of his face. “Well—this isn’t an excuse or anything! I know I acted like an asshole and that’s on me. But I guess a little part of why I didn’t want to admit how much I liked you is because I just couldn’t tell if you were actually into me or not.”

Misha’s speechless, and he can’t remember the last time that happened to him. His mouth opens and closes, and he’s vaguely aware that he must resemble nothing so much as a 6-foot, blue-eyed fish out of water. When he finds his words, he finally manages to choke out, “Are you serious?”

Jensen shrugs unhappily. “I can never tell. You’re so charming with everyone, so flirty all the time. Men, women, waiters, bartenders. So I never knew: were you into me, were you not into me, was I just your convenient fuck—”

“Jensen.”

“I’m serious!”

Misha shakes his head disbelievingly. “Jensen,” he says again. “You’re beautiful. You’re probably the most beautiful person I’ve ever met in the flesh.”

Jensen flushes, but his soft mouth turns down into a scowl. “Yeah okay, so you think I’m hot. I’m hot and available and down to fuck. That doesn’t mean you actually want anything to do with me, specifically.”

“You didn’t let me finish.” Misha tilts his head, catching Jensen’s shy gaze. “It’s not just about your looks, though you are the hottest thing I’ve ever had in my bed. I like you, Jensen. So much. _Too_ much. I’m sorry if I didn’t make that clear.”

A slow smile stretches across Jensen’s face, devastating in the way it lights him up, lines gathering around the corners of his eyes as his full lips tug up. “Oh yeah?”

Misha shrugs. “You think I send pictures of fat, grumpy animals to just anyone?” Jensen beams Misha can’t help but grin back at him. He wants to stand up, to lean across the table and kiss that stupid smirk right off Jensen’s face, his thighs actually tensing to make the move before he remember, stops himself. “But I don’t want to go back in the closet. I’ve done the self-hating, hiding who I am thing before, Jensen, and I don’t want to do that again.”

Jensen’s smile fades and he bites at the inside of his lip. “I don’t want you to. And I don’t think I want to either. I meant what I said before; I got scared, the other day, but I’m ready now. I want to be with you, and I’m sorry for being a dick. My friends all know about us, I’ll even tell my parents if you want me to.” His shoulders go a little tight at that last, but his eyes are wide and sincere and—fuck it.

“I’m not gonna make you do that before you’re ready,” Misha says.

Jensen’s eyes light up. “Does that mean—”

“Yeah, apology accepted.” Misha takes a breath, lets the smile building up under his skin part his lips. “Let’s give it another try. But only because you brought flowers.”

And Jensen looks so fucking _happy_ then, beaming and bright and radiant, that Misha huffs a laugh and gives in to the impulse to kiss him, standing and stretching himself over the table. Jensen rises up and meets him halfway, his hand falling to Misha’s shoulder and fisting in the worn fabric of his t-shirt. Their lips meet, soft and chaste and warm, and Jensen leans into him when Misha lifts a hand to curl it around the angle of his jaw.

When they pull apart it’s only to laugh at themselves, steepled over the little round table, the edge of it digging into both their thighs. They wind up on the couch, pressed close, Jensen’s arm curling over Misha’s shoulders and Misha’s palm resting, warm, on the meat of Jensen’s thigh as they kiss.

“You owe me a hell of a blowjob,” Misha mutters into Jensen’s mouth and Jensen laughs and presses harder into the kiss.

Eventually, Misha pulls back regretfully, his hands lingering where they’ve found the back of Jensen’s neck, the soft give of his waist. He smiles at the soft, protesting sound Jensen makes, and jerks his head at the case standing up against the wall beside the sofa. “So what’s with the guitar?”

“Oh,” Jensen leans back a little, freeing his hand from where it’s fisted in Misha’s t-shirt to scratch at the back of his head, fingers raking through the short hair. “Well, uh. Last night, I meant to play you something. As an apology.” He disentangles himself from Misha, hauling himself up from the couch and fishing the guitar out of its case.

Misha grins, shuffling forward a little to sit at the edge of the couch. “You were going to sing me a song?”

“Yeah.” Jensen avoids his eyes, but Misha can see the flush as it creeps up from his neck into his face. He spins one of the dining room chairs around until it faces the couch, settling down into it with the guitar resting across his lap.

He stares intently at the guitar, plucking at the strings and tightening them until he likes the sound of each one. Misha watches intently, Jensen’s thick, deft fingers working over the strings and twisting the pegs, the way Jensen’s brow scrunches as he concentrates, head tilting to catch the sound.

He looks up at Misha finally, smiling bashfully. “So yeah. This is what I was gonna sing last night. It probably won’t sound as good without the band but—” he shrugs “—I guess that doesn’t matter much right now.” He ducks his head, looking down at the strings, and then his eyes slip closed and he starts to play.

He starts up a slow, bluesy tune on the guitar, the sound sexy and mournful all at once, longing and need in the plaintive notes. His head moves almost unconsciously with the melody, his hands working deftly over the neck of the guitar, pressing and sliding. And then he starts to sing and his voice is low and sultry and sad, and Misha feels it all the way down in his belly, where it settles, hot and molten. It’s apology and seduction and desperate need all rolled into one, and it’s a solid effort to stay in his seat, to wait for Jensen to finish the song. He’s glad he hadn’t heard it at the bar, because he’s not sure he could’ve resisted that sound, the words _every little bit, every little bit of my love_ , on Jensen’s lips, in that low, fervent croon.

The song ends and Jensen lets the last notes fade away, and then he presses the fingers of his right hand over the strings to dampen them. He opens his eyes and smiles shyly across the room at Misha and Misha feels something in his abdomen turn over.

He lets it warm him from the inside, lets it pull his mouth into a grin. “You are all kinds of adorable right now,” he teases, because if he doesn’t he’s going to tell him that he loves him.

“Shut up,” Jensen retorts grumpily, but he can’t keep back the smile, which stretches wider as Misha makes his way across the room towards him. He relinquishes the guitar when Misha reaches for it, gently tugging it out of his hands to set it carefully back in its case.

And then he’s turning back towards Jensen and climbing into his lap, letting his legs fall either side of Jensen’s as he presses in close. His arms go around Jensen’s neck, and Jensen tilts his head back to meet him when he leans in for a kiss.

“I’m sorry,” Jensen whispers, between presse of their lips, and Misha shakes his head minutely, unwilling to separate them. “I’m so sorry, Mish.”

“Shh, it’s okay,” Misha reassures him. “It’s all okay now.” His hands slip over Jensen’s shoulders, trailing up until they can curl around the sides of Jensen’s neck, thumbs pressing gently into the hollows below his ears. “Thank you.”

He kisses Jensen again, harder this time, and Jensen presses up into it, his hands finding the ridges of Misha’s hips and squeezing gently through his jeans. He’s tentative in a way they haven’t been since that first time in the bathroom of RnR, and Misha kisses him to tell them they’re okay, that they can move on from this. He sweeps his tongue into Jensen’s mouth, works his hands into Jensen’s hair, and that’s a reassurance, and an invitation.

It works, and Misha smiles when he hears the groan working its way out of Jensen’s throat, feels the rock of his hips underneath him. The hands on his hips tuck slowly under the hem of Misha’s t-shirt, as if waiting for a rebuff, and when they don’t get any, he glides them up Misha’s sides. Misha hums his approval, fingers tightening slightly in Jensen’s hair as he pulls away from his mouth to nose under the line of his jaw.

“Is this—” Jensen breaks off to gasp as Misha’s teeth close over the lobe of his ear “—is this makeup sex, Mish?”

“Yeah, baby,” he says, leaving a trail of biting kisses from Jensen’s ear to his throat. “You apologized and you sang me that sexy as _fuck_ song, and now it’s time for us to make up.”

Jensen groans, his hands slipping higher over Misha’s back, pulling him in closer. He turns his head and finds Misha’s mouth again, his mouth hungry and growing urgent as their tongues meet.

Suddenly, Misha feels Jensen go tense underneath him, his hands stilling where they were splayed over his back under his t-shirt. Misha pulls back, leaning back on Jensen’s thighs so he can look down into his face. “What? What’s wrong?”

Jensen shakes his head. “Nothing. I’m great, I’m fucking great.”

“Jensen, c’mon. What’s up?” Misha chucks him gently under the chin with two fingers, urging him to meet his eyes. Jensen looks up, and his tongue darts out to wet his lips before he swallows hard.

“I, uh. I wanted to ask you—” Jensen cuts himself off, sucks in a deep breath. “Will you fuck me?”

Misha’s eyebrows shoot up towards his hairline, surprise warring with the curl of expectant arousal that flickers through him at the words. “What? Jensen, you don’t have to do that. I told you, we’re good.”

Jensen shakes his head again, more vehemently this time. “That’s not why I asked.” He extracts a hand from under Misha’s shirt, reaches to thumb hesitantly at the dip in his chin, the bow of his bottom lip. Misha smiles crookedly and nips teasingly at the pad.

“You don’t owe me anything, Jensen, if that’s what you’re thinking. You don’t have to make it up to me.”

Jensen rolls his eyes, smiling. “Oh fuck off. It’s not like that.” He flushes darker but he doesn’t look away, his thumbs tracing absent little circles over Misha’s back. “I’ve been wanting it for a while, okay, but I just didn’t have the balls to ask.”

Misha studies him, his eyes flickering back and forth between Jensen’s as he considers. It doesn’t look like he’s lying, and if anything he looks—shit, he looks _hopeful._

“Are you sure?” Misha asks seriously.

Jensen grins, shy but sure. “Yeah, Mish, I’m fucking sure.”

Misha lets out a sound like a growl, and drops his head to kiss Jensen fiercely. His hands tighten in Jensen’s hair and Jensen lets out a groan that sounds like need and hunger and urgency, his mouth falling slack for Misha’s tongue even as his arms tighten around Misha, drawing him closer, tighter. Misha feels the hard line of Jensen’s erection and grinds down into it, nipping at Jensen’s throat when he throws his head back with a gasp.

“I’m going to make it so good for you,” he growls, kissing Jensen once more before sliding off his lap and seizing his hand to yank him to his feet.

They kiss their way to Misha’s bedroom, leaving a trail of clothes in their wake, tripping over each others’ socked feet and laughing into each others’ mouths. Misha backs Jensen into the room, pressing into his space until the back of Jensen’s legs find the bed and he topples over backwards. Misha bends down to kiss him, sliding hands down his body until he can slip his socks over his feet, leaving him finally bare, cock hard where it rests against his stomach.

Misha shucks off his jeans and retrieves their lube and a condom from the bedside table, settling himself on his knees beside Jensen on the bed. “Are you sure, Jensen?”

Jensen looks a little nervous and a lot horny, but he manages to roll his eyes. “I’m sure, Misha.” And as if to prove it, he swallows hard and flips himself over, splaying his legs open wide and tilting his hips up, just slightly, in invitation. The muscles along his back and ass and thighs tense and flex, and he looks over his shoulder at Misha, and says, “Please.”

A groan escapes Misha’s lips before he can catch it, and he’s moving to kneel between Jensen’s spread thighs, bending to press his mouth to the broad expanse of his back. “Jesus fucking Christ you’re beautiful,” he mumbles, the words ghosting, hot, over Jensen’s skin. He ignores the embarrassed sound Jensen makes and kisses his way down, hands ghosting over as much of him as he can reach, soothing the lingering tension he can feel under his hands until Jensen ish relaxed and pliant under him.

“Ready?” Misha whispers into the soft skin above Jensen’s hip, reaching for the lube bottle when Jensen nods shakily into the pillow under his head. He trails a slick finger up and down the crack of Jensen’s ass ghosting teasingly over his hole. “If it gets too much, you tell me to stop and I’ll stop,” he says. “Okay?”

“Okay,” Jensen says croakily, and Misha pushes in, slowly, to the first knuckle.

Jensen’s breath hitches but he only tenses a little and only for a second, relaxing on a shaky exhale and signing into the touch. Misha moves slowly, his finger gently working in and out until he feels Jensen push up slightly into the touch.

“How does it feel, baby?”

“Weird,” Jensen says, his voice soft. “Weird but—good.”

“That’s good, baby.” Misha trails his free hand up and down Jensen’s back, keeping him relaxed, kissing the dimples at the base of his spine. Slowly he works his finger deeper, pressing only when Jensen pushes back for more, until he’s buried entirely inside, knuckles pressed to the flesh of Jensen’s ass, his finger slowly working in and out.  Jensen’s breath hitches on a moan and he rocks his hips, grinding his dick into the sheets.

“Ready for more?” Misha asks, and Jensen bucks up into the slide of his finger, groans “yes.”

Misha withdraws his finger, smiling at Jensen’s protesting sound and bends to plant a kiss on the round globe of one of Jensen’s ass cheeks. “Turn over,” he says, tapping Jensen’s hip and Jensen complies, somehow managing to shimmy around and get his legs resituated on either side of Misha.

Misha slides himself down the bed, propping himself up between Jensen’s knees. This time it’s two slick fingers pressing into Jensen, mouth leaving tantalizing kisses and nips on the inside of his thighs. Still he moves slow, easing his fingers slowly in and out, scissoring him wider as he makes his way up Jensen’s thigh to his groin. He closes his mouth around the tip of Jensen’s cock, sucking gently, not enough to bring him off but enough to distract him against that first burning sting as he works another finger in. Jensen groans, his hands finding and fisting in Misha’s hair.

“Mish— _ah, fuck_ —Mish, that’s good.” His fingers tighten, tugging just the way Misha likes, and Misha sucks harder in retaliation, all three fingers working steadily in and out now. He plants his free hand across Jensen’s hips and changes the motion of his fingers, knowing how to make it better.

He knows he’s found Jensen’s prostate because Jensen nearly comes off the bed, legs jerking on either side of him and hips bucking up, a surprised wail bursting from his lips. “Oh Jesus,” he gasps, when Misha backs off and he can breathe again, “do that again!” Misha hums and obliges, pumping his fingers in and out and aiming unerringly for that spot inside. Jensen groans, his head tipping back and back arching, hips working under the tight grasp of Misha’s hand.

When they’ve fucked before, Jensen has been mostly quiet, letting only grunts and gasping sighs and tiny moans slip out. But now, with three of Misha’s fingers up his ass, Misha’s mouth sliding up and down the shaft of his cock, he’s noisy as hell, groaning and whining and gasping Misha’s name with every press of his fingers, every flick of his tongue. It’s so fucking hot that Misha finds himself grinding his own dick down into the mattress beneath him.

Misha works his mouth down further over Jensen’s cock, easing it past his gag reflex and into his throat. He swallows around the head, massaging his fingers into Jensen’s prostate. He wants Jensen to come, wants to bring him off just like this, and he’s not disappointed: it’s not long before Jensen arches back, his hips pumping weakly, fingers clutching at Misha’s hair as he spills, hot, down Misha’s throat, his ass clenching around the fingers buried there.

He slumps back, boneless, on the bed, mouth gasping wide and lips red where he’s bitten them in a failed attempt to keep quiet. Misha lets his softening cock slip out of his mouth, turning his head to nuzzle his hip.

“You okay?” he asks, a smile in his voice as he looks up Jensen’s body to where Jensen is staring wide-eyed at the ceiling.

“Okay? Fuck, Misha.”

Misha grins. “That good, huh?” He presses a kiss to Jensen’s thigh.

“Shut up and fuck me, you asshole.”

He presses his forehead to the spur of Jensen’s hip,  not quite stifling the laugh that huffs through his smiling lips as he pushes himself to his knees. “Okay, baby, okay.” He gropes on the bed beside him for the condom he dropped there, tearing it open and sliding it down over his erection. He slicks more lube over his cock, giving himself a few slow pulls as Jensen watches. Jensen’s eyes are hooded and dark where they fall on the motion of Misha’s hand, his full bottom lip slipping between his teeth.

“Ready?” Misha asks, and in answer, Jensen reaches up and pulls him down for kiss, his tongue teasing at Misha’s mouth. There’s still a hint of nervousness in the way his hands slide over Misha’s bare shoulders but his body has gone lax and pliant underneath him, and there’s hunger in the meet of their mouths, the slip of Jensen’s tongue. When he presses in, Jensen goes tense for just a moment during which Misha is half a thought away from pulling out, but then Jensen arches towards him, his whole body beckoning in invitation, hands tightening around his biceps and fuck if Misha doesn’t obey.

He pushes forward slowly, watching Jensen carefully for any sign of pain or discomfort. Jensen’s hole is loose from Misha’s ministrations and his orgasm, but he’s still tight, hot inside as Misha works himself in until his hips are pressed flush against Jensen’s ass. He freezes, closing his eyes against the tight, burning heat of Jensen’s body begging him to fuck and take, and bends to press a kiss to Jensen’s cheekbone.

“Okay?” Misha asks tightly, nudging his nose under Jensen’s jaw until he tilts his head back, baring his throat to Misha’s kisses. He drags his mouth over the soft flesh there, and he feels Jensen’s small nod against his lips.

“Yeah, I’m. I’m good, just give me a second.”

Misha hums, and he pushes himself up to capture Jensen’s mouth again with his own. Jensen responds, kissing him back as hungrily as before. His hands trail up Misha’s arms, to his shoulders and up into his hair, and he kisses deeper, his body relaxing until he starts rocking his hips, little unconscious thrusts pulling Misha in deeper. Misha moves with him, small gentle rolls of his hips at first until Jensen opens his eyes and pulls back to speak.

“You can move, Mish.” He plants his feet on the bed and pushes up in demonstration, taking in more of Misha and making him gasp. Jensen manages a cocky grin at the sound. “I can take it.”

“I know you can take it, my big, tough Texas boy,” Misha says, grinning. He trails a hand over Jensen’s shoulder, down to squeeze the muscle of his bicep as if in demonstration. “But I told you, I’m gonna make it good.”

“It’s good, baby. It’s good. Gonna give me more?”

Misha smirks. “If you ask nicely.”

Jensen rolls his eyes, but his fingers tighten in Misha’s hair. “Please fuck me, Misha.”

“I don’t appreciate your sarcasm, but I’ll take it.” He gets his knees under him, bracing himself on one forearm and draws his cock out before pushing back in, slow and steady. The movement wrenches a groan out of Jensen’s throat. His back arches, head pressing back into the sheets and Misha’s mesmerized by him, by the tight pull of muscles under his skin, the beauty in the pleasure that tightens him up all over. It’s indescribable, the hot grip of Jensen’s body around him, the clench of Jensen’s fingers in his hair begging for more and Misha gives it to him, his hips working up into a rhythm as one of Jensen’s legs comes up to curl around him, pull him in deeper.

“Misha please,” Jensen says on a groan, his voice low and wrecked, and this time there’s no sarcasm. “More.”

Misha laughs breathlessly at the desperate need in his voice. “From closeted to needy bottom all in just over a week,” he teases, his own voice gone low and gravelly as pleasure builds low in his belly.

“Shut up,” Jensen gasps. “So good Mish, _please—”_

And maybe he’s fucking whipped but he can’t help but listen when Jensen’s begging him like that, hands running down out of his hair, over his back to clutch at his ass. He pauses in his rhythm long enough to tuck his knees further under his body, curling Jensen up tight and thrusting in harder.

He’s rewarded by the sounds he gets, broken moans and whimpers and curses slipping out of Jensen’s mouth. And on the fourth thrust something must fall into place, the tilt of their bodies and the angle of Misha’s thrusts just right, because Jensen lets out a strangled wail, his fingers digging involuntarily into the muscle of Misha’s ass.

“There, baby?”

“Jesus _fuck_ Misha, yes, right there, fuck—”

Misha laughs breathlessly and aims for Jensen’s prostate now that he’s found it, striving for every broken sound of pleasure he can pull out of Jensen’s throat. He maintains the rhythm as long as he can, but Jensen’s body is hot and tight around him, and he’s making the most beautiful noise and looks breathtakingly gorgeous under him, flushed and shiny with sweat and need. The curling heat building in his cock and his balls and radiating out through his body and up his spine has him thrusting wildly into Jensen’s heat. He reaches between them to where Jensen’s hard again and leaking and fists him roughly, jerking him off furiously until he’s gasping and coming for the second time, come striping up over his stomach. And Misha lets out a sob of relief and lets go, Jensen tightening down around him to drag him over the edge, coming deep inside Jensen’s body.

He slows his motions, grinding his cock deep inside Jensen until the hammering in his ears dies down. He braces himself on one forearm, the other hand coming up to stroke over Jensen’s thigh where it’s curled tightly around him.

He opens his mouth to say something snarky, something about how good it was, or how noisy and needy Jensen is when he’s getting fucked, but all that comes out, soft, is, “Jensen.”

Jensen looks up at him and smiles. “Hey, Mish.” He reaches up to curl a hand around the back of Misha’s neck and draws him down, pulling him into a languid kiss.

After a few moments, Misha finally leans back, pulling slowly out of Jensen and moving shakily off the bed to discard the condom. When he comes back, Jensen flips over to curl into him so they’re facing each other, and Misha shamelessly insinuates his leg between both of Jensen’s, bringing a hand up to play with his hair.

“Was it good, Jensen?” Misha asks.

“What, you don’t already know? Where’s all that patented Misha Collins bravado?” Jensen smirks, but something must show on Misha’s face because it fades into something more serious. “It was fucking amazing, Mish.”

“Not bad for makeup sex?”

“I believe the words used were ‘fucking amazing’.”

Misha hums happily and noses at Jensen’s temple. Jensen’s arm tightens around his waist, and he lifts his head to meet his mouth.

“So,” Jensen says after a few more soft, fervent kisses. “Can I call you my boyfriend now?”

Misha smiles. “I guess. But only if you stay on your best behaviour.”

Jensen laughs, and slides in closer.

* * *

RnR is busy the following Thursday, cars lined up outside by time Misha climbs down off the bus and makes his way across the parking lot. There’s a steady trickle of patrons making their way to the door, and Misha falls in behind them, the distorted sound of Rob’s band up on stage calling to them like a siren with each swing of the door.

The door creaks noisily shut behind him and he stands up on his toes to look over the scattered crowds towards the bar. He spots Jensen first, of course: spiky brown hair stained dark in the dim light, denim jacket stretched tight over broad shoulders, the sharp angle of a slightly scruffy jaw. He’d be embarrassed about how easily his eye is drawn to him except that Jensen is the most beautiful person in most rooms, and he’s _Misha’s_ , which means he doesn’t really give a shit how embarrassing it is. And then there’s Jared’s head, inches above the rest, long hair grazing his jawline when he turns his head to laugh at something Kim says from where she’s leaning ever so cooly up against the bar.

He weaves his way through the clusters of people occupying the floor—Jesus, open mic night is really taking off—to where the little conglomerate of his and Misha’s friends are parked in their usual spot up against the bar.

Briana spots him first and she yells “ _Misha!”_  before peeling herself away from Kim’s side and throwing her arms around his neck. He grins and hugs her back, but his eyes find Jensen’s over her shoulder and he almost blushes at the shy pleasure he sees written over Jensen’s face.

“Wow, Briana. Started the party early, huh?”

She sticks out her tongue at him as she pulls back, but she can’t hold the expression for long, dimples showing in her cheeks as she grins.

He settles in at Jensen’s side, flicking a glance up at him. “Hey.”

He can’t see the flush in Jensen’s cheeks in the low light but he does see the slide of his tongue when he licks his lips fast, the catch of his teeth against the flesh when he bites back a smile. “Hey, Mish,” he says, low, and then, clearer, “guys this is Misha. My—my boyfriend. Misha, everybody.”

“Wow Ackles, you’re great at the whole introductions thing,” Jared says, extending a giant hand which Misha accepts and shakes firmly. “Nice to meet you. Again.”

Misha grins and waits as the rest of Jensen’s friends introduce themselves. Genevieve is next, then the dark haired guy who introduces himself as Matt, and the stunning redhead who might just be giving Jensen a run for most beautiful person in the bar is Danneel. She’s got a mouth on her, too, and Misha likes her instantly. He likes them all, actually, and he likes the easy way they weave themselves into the group of Misha’s friends, like they fit. Genevieve is talking to Alona over the bar and Rich comes by to hassle everyone and it’s good; it feels right.

He keeps a little bit of space between himself and Jensen, resisting the pull of their bodies in favor of easing him into this, letting him take it slow. Jensen seems to have other ideas though; as soon as Misha has finished shaking hands with the newcomers, he takes a breath, seems to steel himself, and then snatches up Misha’s hand. Misha glances up at him in surprise and Jensen’s flushing under his freckles, but he smiles a little and determinedly weaves their fingers together. Misha drags his gaze away, biting the inside of his lip to fight the fucking enormous grin that pulls at his mouth.

“You guys are gross,” Danneel comments matter-of-factly, a teasing smile curling her lips. “I can’t believe you thought you could keep this from us.”

“I know, right?” Richard says. “Count yourself lucky; I’ve been watching this disgusting mating dance for months now,” and they exchange arched eyebrows and mocking grins.

“Shut up, both of you,” Jensen grumbles as their friends laugh, but his hand tightens around Misha’s, his thumb grazing shyly over the back of his hand.

Jared interjects by asking Misha about his carpentry, and Misha has enough time to be tickled that Jensen told his friends about his hobbies before he’s dragged into eager conversation with them all. He’s touched with how easily Jensen’s friends accept him, how none of them bat an eyelash over their formerly-closeted friend holding hands with another man.

The company is good, and Alona keeps the beer flowing, and Rob’s band is awesome even if the singers sometimes aren’t. And through it all, there’s the pressure of Jensen’s fingers clasped with his, the slow glide of his thumb over the back of Misha’s hand.

Misha tries not to look like a lovestruck idiot. He fails.

Somewhere in the conversation, Misha makes a joke that makes Jensen burst out laughing, his body arching back in that beautiful curve of pure mirth that Misha can’t help but appreciate. Jared makes comments filled with sneaky double entendres and Danneel outright taunts them and it’s good. It’s really good.

Finally, Jensen catches Rob’s eyes up on stage and they exchange a little nod. “Well, that’s my cue,” he says, and he rakes his free hand through his hair.

“Kill it, Jensen,” Briana crows, and Jared offers him a high five, and Misha squeezes his hand once and shoots him a grin and a wink before Jensen dismisses himself with a haphazard salute at the group of them and disappears to prepare for his turn on stage.

“So Misha,” Jared says seriously, as soon as Jensen is out of hearing range, “what are your intentions with our Jensen?”

Misha stares, and the face he makes must be hilarious because the girls burst out laughing, and Jared grins a dimply smile and gives him a friendly clap on the shoulder that makes his entire arm go numb. “Just kidding, man. You’re good for him, I can tell.”

Misha grins to hide his flush. “Well I am helping him to expand his horizons.” He winks and Rich groans, throwing out an elbow which catches Jared somewhere around the level of his hip.

“You don’t know him well enough yet to know this, but here’s a tip: don’t encourage him.”

They laugh and the chatter goes on through the next singer, and then it’s Jensen sweeping aside the heavy black curtain and stepping out onstage to the cheers of the crowd. He’s shed the jacket and the scarf, and the dark blue henley he has on underneath pulls across his chest and shoulders as he shifts the guitar strap across his body. He looks sure out there now, like he belongs there, up on the stage where he wants to be. A swell of warmth and pride and tight, aching feeling rushes in to fill up Misha’s chest, leaving him at once aching and wanting and deliriously full, and it’s the sappiest fucking thing he’s ever felt.

Jensen plugs in his guitar and steps forward to depress a pedal and then he’s stepping up the mic.

“Hey, I’m Jensen—” he looks up, surprised, from the stage floor beneath his boots when cheers fill the room. “Thanks, I missed you guys, too. If you know this one, sing along…”

Misha puts his fingers to his mouth and whistles along with the cheers of all their friends as the band starts up. Up on the stage, he sees Jensen’s mouth curl into a blushing smile, and can’t help the one that curves his lips up in return.

THE END

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so, so much for reading! Don't forget to check out the amazing art and let Sandra know how much you love it! I'm @winceywonk on twitter and http://wincechesters.tumblr.com on tumblr if you want to say hi! I love you so many :') 
> 
> The song in this chapter is 'I'm Gonna Crawl' by Led Zeppelin.


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